Societal views of justice for adolescents accused of murder

Examines citizens' views about when juveniles accused of homicide should be tried and punished as adults. Responses from two randomly selected samples of adult Georgia residents suggest that these views are strongly influenced by whether adolescent defendants have been victims of abuse. Laypersons prefer juvenile court for juveniles who kill abusive parents (76% for first time offenders. 77% for those with one prior adjudication). Respondents are split concerning how to punish abused juveniles who have two prior adjudications (49% recommend juvenile court) and abused juveniles with one prior offense who kill a neighbor (48% recommend juvenile court). Most respondents, however, prefer adult court for repeat offenders who kill and have no history of child abuse. These findings suggest that legislative automatic transfers are overly simplistic compared to the contextual sensitivity of community sentiment. Policymakers may have serious misconceptions of societal views of fairness in this area.     

Legal,Psychological, and Behavioral Outcomes

States have responded to the public's outrage at rising juvenile crime by revising their transfer statutes to make it easier to transfer juvenile offenders for trial and sentencing in criminal court and possible incarceration in adult prisons. These changing trends in juvenile justice raise three questions about what actually happens to juveniles once they are in the adult criminal justice system. To what extent does trial in adult court and/or incarceration in adult prisons promote or retard community protection, juvenile offenders' accountability, and the development of competencies in juvenile offenders? This article discusses state transfer laws and the legal consequences of criminal court prosecution, and analyzes current research on deterrence effects of transfer laws, conviction and sentencing in juvenile versus criminal court, recidivism rates in juvenile versus criminal court, and conditions and programming in juvenile versus adult correctional facilities. The research findings have two important implications for juvenile justice policy: the number of juvenile cases transferred to criminal court should be minimized, and imprisonment of juveniles in adult facilities should be avoided whenever possible. These implications are discussed, and directions for future research are identified.     

An Evaluation of a Delaware Teen Court

The Kent County Teen Court Program (teen court) provides sanctions for juvenile delinquency from a panel of a juvenile's peers rather than from a Family Court Judge. Part of the concept behind teen peer courts is that the sanction from one's peers carries more weight than sanctions from adults. The Delaware Criminal Justice Council (CJC) awarded a grant to Delaware ‐ Teen Courts, Inc. to support the operation of the Kent County Teen Court Program. The teen court program was designed to provide participants with hands‐on education in the judicial process, to create a sanction pro‐ gram that will not create a permanent record for a juvenile, and to foster, a sense of community responsibility in the program participants. The teen court program is an adult model teen court in which all of the judicial actors are juveniles with the exception of the judge. This article reflects the results of an evaluation on the Kent County Teen Court program's first two years of operation (Garrison, 2001).     

THE “TRUE” JUVENILE OFFENDER: AGE EFFECTS AND JUVENILE COURT SANCTIONING

Age is the only factor used to demarcate the boundary between juvenile and adult justice. However, little research has examined how age guides the juvenile court in determining which youth within the juvenile justice system merit particular dispositions, especially those that reflect the court's emphasis on rehabilitation. Drawing on scholarship on the court's origins, attribution theory, and cognitive heuristics, we hypothesize that the court focuses on youth in the middle of the range of the court's age of jurisdiction—characterized in this article as “true” juveniles—who may be viewed as meriting more specialized intervention. We use data from Florida for court referrals in 2008 (N = 71,388) to examine the decision to proceed formally or informally and, in turn, to examine formally processed youth dispositions (dismissal, diversion, probation, commitment, and transfer) and informally processed youth dispositions (dismissal, diversion, and probation). The analyses provide partial support for the hypothesis. The very young were more likely to be informally processed; however, among the informally processed youth, the youngest, not “true” juveniles, were most likely to be diverted or placed on probation. By contrast, among formally processed youth, “true” juveniles were most likely to receive traditional juvenile court responses, such as diversion or probation.     

What Do Juvenile Offenders Know About Being Tried as Adults? Implications for Deterrence

An underlying assumption in the nationwide policy shift toward transferring more juveniles to criminal court has been the belief that stricter, adult sentences will act as either a specific or general deterrent to juvenile crime. With respect to general deterrence—whether transfer laws deter would‐be offenders from committing crimes—it is important to examine whether juveniles know about transfer laws, whether this knowledge deters criminal behavior, and whether juveniles believe the laws will be enforced against them. The current study is one of the first to examine juveniles' knowledge and perceptions of transfer laws and criminal sanctions. We interviewed 37 juveniles who had been transferred to criminal court in Georgia, obtaining quantitative as well as qualitative data based on structured interviewed questions. Four key findings emerged. First, juveniles were unaware of the transfer law. Second, juveniles felt that awareness of the law may have deterred them from committing the crime or may deter other juveniles from committing crimes, and they suggested practical ways to enhance juveniles' awareness of transfer laws. Third, the juveniles generally felt that it was unfair to try and sentence them as adults. Finally, the consequences of committing their crime were worse than most had imagined, and the harsh consequences of their incarceration in adult facilities may have had a brutalizing effect on some juveniles. The implications for general and specific deterrence are discussed.     

JUVENILITY AND PUNISHMENT: SENTENCING JUVENILES IN ADULT CRIMINAL COURT*

The study outlined in this article addressed a key limitation of prior research on the punishment of juveniles transferred to adult court by employing propensity score matching techniques to create more comparable samples of juvenile and young adult offenders. Using recent data from the Maryland State Commission on Criminal Sentencing Policy, it tested competing theoretical propositions about the salience of juvenile status in adult court. Findings indicate that even after rigorous statistical matching procedures, juvenile offenders are punished more severely than their young adult counterparts. We found no evidence that this “juvenile penalty” is exacerbated by an offender's race or gender, but it does vary starkly across offense type and mode of transfer, being driven primarily by drug crimes and discretionary waivers. The import of these findings is discussed as they relate to the future of juvenile justice policy regarding the continued use of juvenile transfer to adult court.     

Balancing power through law: The state v. the juvenile in delinquency proceedings

A content analysis of Maryland's juvenile court law spanning 1947–1978 posed two questions: (1) Had the state legislature redefined the juvenile court process in the matter of delinquency such that the juvenile received more power resources relative to those of the state? (2) Did the ratio of the state's and the juvenile's power resources diminish to the point of negligibility? Findings suggest that the court process may have been structurally revised without a significant change in the overall relationship of the parties in the process.     

THE JUVENILE PENALTY: A COMPARISON OF JUVENILE AND YOUNG ADULT SENTENCING OUTCOMES IN CRIMINAL COURT*

This study uses criminal court data from the Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing (PCS) to investigate the sentencing of juvenile offenders processed in adult criminal court by comparing their sentencing outcomes to those of young adult offenders in similar situations. Because the expanded juvenile exclusion and transfer policies of the 1990s have led to an increase in the number of juveniles convicted in adult courts, we argue that it is critical to better understand the judicial decision making processes involved. We introduce competitive hypotheses on the relative leniency or severity of sentencing outcomes for transferred juveniles and interpret our results with the focal concerns theoretical perspective on sentencing. Our findings indicate that juvenile offenders in adult court are sentenced more severely than their young adult counterparts. Moreover, findings suggest that juvenile status interacts with and conditions the effects of other important sentencing factors including offense type, offense severity and prior criminal record. We discuss these results as they relate to immediate outcomes for transferred juveniles, criminal court processes in general and the broader social implications for juvenile justice policy concerning the transfer of juveniles to criminal court.     

Sustained Outcomes? an Exploratory Study of Juvenile Drug Courts and Long-Term Recidivism

This exploratory study examined juvenile drug courts’ effect on adulthood recidivism. Utilizing a twelve-year average follow up time, adult recidivism rates were compared between previous juvenile drug court participants and a comparison group of juveniles who participated in traditional probation. Linear regression models indicated limited recidivism effects of drug court on arrests or convictions into adulthood. The findings suggest that gender and race may play a role in how justice-involved juveniles interact and experience juvenile drug court, highlighting the need for gender-responsive and culturally responsive policies, practices, and programs within juvenile drug courts. Recommendations are made regarding future research areas and ways to potentially improve long-term juvenile drug court outcomes.     

Psychosocial concepts in juvenile law

This study was designed to clarify the types of information about juveniles and their families that are relevant for three types of juvenile court decisions: (a) the pretrial detention of juveniles; (b) their transfer for trial in criminal courts: and (c) disposition decisions after delinquency adjudication. Predominant legal standards for these decisions are described, information relevance for the decisions is defined, and why past studies have failed to clarify the information needs of juvenile court decision makers is explained. Results of a study involving a national sample of juvenile court personnel include an empirically derived domain of psychosocial and behavioral characteristics of juveniles and their families relevant for courts' interpretations of controlling legal standards; factor analysis of the domain, describing dimensions of the domain of information about juveniles and families; and an examination of the relation of these information categories to each legal standard controlling the decision areas in question. The interpretation of results may facilitate decision making by juvenile courts, evaluations by mental health professionals who assist juvenile courts, and further research by social scientists who study discretionary juvenile court decisions.This research was supported by grant No. MH-35090 from the Center for Studies of Antisocial and Violent Behavior, National Institute of Mental Health, DHHS. Portions of the study were conducted in collaboration with the National Juvenile Law Center, Inc. of St. Louis. The authors wish to acknowledge Martha Bellew-Smith, Marcia Conlin, and Robert Rust, who contributed substantially to the conduct of the study. Others who participated at various stages are Steve Bellus and Sandra Seigel     

A Comparison of the Dispositions of Juvenile Offenders Certified as Adults with Juvenile Offenders Not Certified

Abstract In recent years, the transfer of juveniles to adult courts has been seen as one way of “getting tough” on juvenile crime. This study examined juvenile cases transferred to adult court, and compared them with a random sample of delinquents adjudicated in juvenile court for conduct that would constitute felonies if committed by an adult. The results indicated that juvenile cases transferred to adult court were far more likely to be pending and unresolved, as compared to the sample from the juvenile justice system. Furthermore, the results did not support the proposition that juveniles transferred to adult court would receive greater punishment than they could expect in juvenile court. Except for a small number of offenders, the prospect of transfer did not appear to provide a deterrent to crime.     

Juvenile Delinquency Guidelines: Improving Court Practice in Juvenile Delinquency Cases SIXTEEN KEY PRINCIPLES

This article is excerpted from the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges' landmark JUVENILE DELINQUENCY GUIDELINES: Improving Court Practice in Juvenile Delinquency Cases, Chapter I, Foundations for Excellence, published in 2005. Beginning with a basic discussion of why separate courts for juveniles and adults continue to be necessary, the article describes the goals and key principles of a juvenile delinquency court of excellence.     

Do legal variables predict police decisions regarding the prosecution of juvenile offenders?

This study investigated whether legal variables predict police dispositions as regards the prosecution of juveniles. For this purpose first apprehensions of a sample of 479 Israeli adolescents (aged 13.5–15.5) in a one-year period were analyzed. The association between the legal variables and police dispositions was analyzed separately within four hierarchical stages of involvement with the juvenile justice system. Previous referral to court and previous court appearance were found to be excellent predictors of police decision to prosecute. However, in the earlier stages of involvement with the juvenile justice system, (i.e., when juveniles had no previous court referrals or appearances), the predicting power of the few available legal variables (type and seriousness of offense and number of previous police apprehensions) was found to be negligible. In the discussion of the findings, the contradicting labeling and deterrence theories are applied to the functioning of the juvenile units within the police: The present study has empirically identified the specific point where police decision-making reflects a switch-over from the labeling to the deterrence approach. Some suggestions for future research are put forward in order to improve the predictability of police dispositions at the early stages of the juvenile's involvement with the criminal justice system.     

TRANSFERRED JUVENILES IN THE ERA OF SENTENCING GUIDELINES: EXAMINING JUDICIAL DEPARTURES FOR JUVENILE OFFENDERS IN ADULT CRIMINAL COURT*

This study contributes to contemporary research on the punishment of juvenile offenders in adult court by analyzing the use of guidelines departures for transferred juveniles in two states, one with presumptive sentencing guidelines (Pennsylvania) and one with voluntary guidelines (Maryland). Propensity score matching is first used to create more comparable samples of juvenile and young adult offenders, and then Tobit regressions are employed to estimate the effect of juvenile status on the likelihood and length of departures. Our findings indicate that juvenile status significantly affects the use of upward departures in Pennsylvania, and the use of both downward and upward departures in Maryland. Judicial reasons for departure are examined to provide additional insight into the complex dynamics surrounding exceptional sentences for juvenile offenders sentenced in adult court.     

Violent Youth in Juvenile and Adult Court: An Assessment of Sentencing Strategies in Texas

This paper examines the effectiveness of two sentencing strategies for managing serious and violent juvenile offenders: judicial waiver to adult court and determinate sentencing in juvenile court. Corrections data were analyzed and it was found that both groups consistently receive longer terms of incarceration than are available through normal juvenile justice processing. However, this finding changed when actual time served was taken into consideration. A discriminant analysis showed that juveniles determin-ately sentenced in juvenile court are more likely to be younger and receive and serve shorter sentences than juveniles waived to adult court and sentenced to prison.     

从“封存”到“消灭”——未成年人轻罪犯罪记录封存制度之解读与评价

新《刑事诉讼法》第275条规定的未成年人轻罪犯罪记录封存制度是我国未成年人刑事司法制度的重要发展,对未成年犯复学、升学、就业以及顺利回归社会具有积极的现实意义.但是,该规定不仅过于原则,缺乏可操作性,而且适用对象过窄、对适用主体和适用程序也都未作任何规定.这些都将严重影响该制度的运作和实施效果,甚至可能使其沦为制度上的“花瓶”和实践中的“鸡肋”.为充分发挥该制度的重要价值和意义,应当将其“升级”为未成年人犯罪记录消灭制度.我国在制定有关未成年人的法律以及司法解释或规范性文件时需要“接力”和“合力”,但更需要“给力”.     

An Evaluation of Teen Court as a Juvenile Crime Diversion Program

Theories of procedural justice support the American legal system's search for a fair and effective means of diverting offenders from the juvenile court system. Teen Court programs, in which juvenile offenders are tried and sentenced by a jury of peers, are one of the latest developments in attempts to positively influence offenders and direct them free of crime. The present research found that participation in Teen Court increased offenders' legal knowledge and enhanced their attitudes toward some authority figures (i.e., the judge) and themselves to a greater extent than non‐offending juveniles. In addition, only 12.6 percent of juvenile offenders re‐offended within five months of their initial Teen Court involvement. Improved attitudes toward authority and self were associated with a lower incidence of recidivism. Overall, these results contribute to the growing literature indicating that Teen Court can be an effective juvenile crime diversion program. This article also discusses methodological issues for future program evaluations.     

Do juvenile drug courts reduce recidivism?: Outcomes of drug court and an adolescent substance abuse program

Juvenile drug courts have emerged as “innovative” responses to juvenile drug offenders, but comparatively little is known about their operations. This paper presents results of a retrospective comparison of drug court participants to an adolescent substance abuse program (ASAP) to examine which participants fared better in terms of future recidivism. Using data collected from official case files, we compared recidivism levels for all juveniles (n = 150) terminated from drug court between 1996 and 1999 with those of a random sample of juveniles (n = 158) terminated from ASAP during 1994 and 1995. Biand multivariate analyses were conducted to identify whether significant differences existed between the groups concerning re-arrest (recidivism) over a 24-month post-release observation period. Study results highlighted by logistic regression analyses suggesting that juveniles in drug court were no more likely to recidivate than were juveniles in ASAP is a positive finding for the drug court program and is an indication that the program is working, especially given the serious nature of this juvenile offender population.     

Legislative Waiver Reconsidered: General Deterrent Effects of Statutory Exclusion Laws Enacted Post‐1979

In recent years, the juvenile justice system has undergone a “get tough” transformation. One component of the system which has experienced substantial alteration is the mechanism by which states allow for the waiver of juvenile offenders to adult criminal court. Most of the state systems now have some form of transfer procedure in place and many allow for the automatic transfer (or statutory exclusion) of juveniles who have been charged with certain offenses. Although the effects of waiver laws on individuals have received much empirical attention, their effects on the respective states’ aggregate level violent juvenile crime rates are less understood. In this study, we examine the relative effects of legislative waiver laws in 22 states that have added statutory exclusion provisions since 1979. In doing so, we assess whether legislative waiver should be reconsidered.     

The politics of race and juvenile justice: The “due process revolution” and the conservative reaction

Through the prism of race, this article analyzes the social structural and political context of juvenile justice law reforms over the past half century. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, the Supreme Court imposed national legal and equality norms on recalcitrant southern states that still adhered to a segregated Jim Crow legal regime, and these norms provided the impetus for the Supreme Court's juvenile court “due process” decisions in the 1960s. The article then analyzes sociological, criminological, racial factors, media coverage, and political dynamics of the 1970s and 1980s that contributed to the “get tough” legislative reformulation of juvenile justice policies in the 1990s. During this period, conservative Republican politicians pursued a “southern strategy,” used crime as a code word for race for electoral advantage, and advocated “get tough” policies, which led to punitive changes in juvenile justice laws and practices and have had a disproportionate impact on racial minorities.