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.     

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.     

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.     

Youth In Prisons and Training Schools: Perceptions and Consequences of the Treatment-Custody Dichotomy

Transfer (or waiver) of juveniles to criminal court is one of the most extreme responses to serious youth crime. Although many states have recently revised their transfer statutes, and the number of juveniles prosecuted as adults increases each year, little research has been conducted to assess the correctional experiences of delinquent youth convicted in criminal court and sentenced to adult prison. Evaluations of such experiences are important to policymakers and juvenile justice officials who are considering juvenile transfers as a strategy for securing longer and harsher confinement for offenders. Based on interviews with 59 chronic juvenile offenders placed in state training schools, and 81 comparable youths sentenced to adult correctional facilities, this article presents a comparison of offenders' perceptions of their correctional experiences. Juveniles incarcerated in training schools give more positive evaluations of treatment and training programs, general services, and institutional personnel than do those youths in prison. Juveniles housed in institutions which emphasize security over treatment — i.e., prisons — are more often victimized during their confinement than youths in the treatment-oriented training schools. Once placed in prisons, adolescent inmates are more likely to be victims of prison violence and crime from both inmates and staff. These research results suggest some paradoxical effects of the treatment-custody distinction implicit in judicial waiver practices. The differential socialization into crime and violence for youths in adult prisons may increase the risks of having these types of behavior repeated by transferred youths once released.     

Blended Sentencing Laws and the Punitive Turn in Juvenile Justice

In many states, young people today can receive a “blended” combination of both a juvenile sanction and an adult criminal sentence. We ask what accounts for the rise of blended sentencing in juvenile justice and whether this trend parallels crime control developments in the adult criminal justice system. We use event history analysis to model state adoption of blended sentencing laws from 1985 to 2008, examining the relative influence of social, political, administrative, and economic factors. We find that states with high unemployment, greater prosecutorial discretion, and disproportionate rates of African American incarceration are most likely to pass blended sentencing provisions. This suggests that the turn toward blended sentencing largely parallels the punitive turn in adult sentencing and corrections—and that theory and research on adult punishment productively extends to developments in juvenile justice.     

Predicting sentencing outcomes and time served for juveniles transferred to criminal court in a rural northwestern state

In the past few decades, the focus of the juvenile justice system shifted from the best interests of the child to the best interests of society. One component of the shift was an increase in the waiver of juveniles to adult criminal court. Prior research suggested juveniles were typically sentenced to short prison sentences or probation in the adult criminal court. On the other hand, more recent evidence suggested sentencing outcomes had varied by offense type. In the present study, the author examined what occurred in a primarily rural northwestern state. Additionally, multivariate analyses were used to examine which factors aided in predicting sentencing outcomes and time served for this population.     

Sentencing disparities for juvenile offenders sentenced to adult prisons: An individual and contextual analysis

While the punishment of juvenile offenders has increasingly become an issue of major concern to the public, there are few studies that test the government's coercive response to offending by this particular group. This study addresses this issue by examining the variation in sentence length for juvenile offenders adjudicated in the adult criminal courts for violent offenses. Results from the regression analyses consistently show that, while factors related to the specific offense are important contributors to the variation in sentence length, differences in the ideological climate of each state are a strong predictor of the variation in adult sanctions for minors. Specifically, the findings show that conservative citizen ideology and Republican control of state government are important contributors to the variation in sentencing of juveniles across U.S. states. Additional evidence shows that states where judges must run in an election to gain their seats proscribe more severe sanctions on juvenile offenders by sentencing more of them to adult prisons. Overall, the results suggest that the social and political climate of each state plays a very strong role in the sentencing of juvenile offenders to adult prisons.     

Knowledgeable Judges Make a Difference: Judicial Beliefs Affect Juvenile Court Transfer Decisions

This study examined how judicial knowledge and attitudes about transfer affects transfer decisions by juvenile court judges. Participants included 232 juvenile court judges from around the country who completed a vignette survey that presented a prototypical case involving a serious juvenile offender. Participants were asked to decide whether the juvenile should be transferred and to rate his rehabilitative potential. Judges who believed in the deterrent effects of transfer were more likely to recommend that the juvenile be transferred and to rate him as having lower rehabilitative potential. More experienced judges saw greater rehabilitative potential in the juvenile and were less likely to transfer him to the criminal court. Overall, judges tended to think that transfer lacked general and specific deterrent effects, endorsed rehabilitative over punitive goals in sentencing, and felt positively about the juvenile justice system's effectiveness in handling serious offenders. Yet, a sizable minority of judges felt otherwise. The implications of the findings for judicial education and legal advocacy are discussed.     

JUVENILE WAIVER AS A MECHANISM OF SOCIAL STRATIFICATION: A FOCUS ON HUMAN CAPITAL*

The historic transformations of the criminal justice system must be justified and interpreted through the effects on criminals (Maruna and Immarigeon, 2011). The push for harsher sentencing policies for juvenile offenders specifically through the use of juvenile waiver to criminal court is one such policy that is not well understood in terms of its effects on offenders, especially in terms of broader outcomes beyond recidivism. We use data from the Pathways to Desistance Study, which consists of a sample of adolescent offenders followed for 7 years postadjudication, to investigate the effect juvenile waiver has on human capital acquisition and yield among 557 adolescents from Maricopa County, Arizona. By using various matching specifications, our findings demonstrate that juveniles transferred to adult court experience no deleterious effects on human capital in terms of educational acquisition compared with similar youth retained in the juvenile system, yet they still earn considerably less income 7 years postadjudication. These results suggest that an important and unintended collateral consequence of juvenile waiver is an increase in social stratification potentially through labeling and labor market discrimination.     

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.     

Do Criminal Court Outcomes Vary by Juvenile Transfer Mechanism? A Multi-Jurisdictional,Multilevel Analysis

In recent decades, the number of juvenile defendants transferred to criminal court has increased dramatically, in large measure due to an expansion of available transfer mechanisms. While transfer traditionally occurred by judicial waiver of jurisdiction, alternatives have emerged and eclipsed judicial waiver as the primary route to adult court. The present study examines whether the mechanism of waiver—judicial, prosecutorial, or legislative—affects sentencing outcomes for juvenile defendants transferred to adult court. Results from multilevel models that control for state-level variation indicate that sentencing outcomes are inextricably tied to method of transfer. Most notably, non-criminal outcomes are most likely for cases that arrive in criminal court by legislative waiver. This suggests that legislative waiver is an ineffective means of sending juvenile offenders to criminal court, and provides some empirical support for the notion that judicial waiver is the most appropriate method of transfer.     

Presidential address: Juvenile justice at the crossroads: Presidential address to the academy of criminal justice sciences

Three interacting factors appear to significantly affect our treatment of youths and thus our juvenile justice policy: ideology, the media, and politics. As a result of these factors, although juvenile violent crime is decreasing, legislatures still advocate a harsh, punitive stance toward youthful offenders. Legislative initiatives have resulted in determinate sentencing for juveniles, more youths handled by the adult criminal court, and more youths sentenced to adult institutions. Recent evidence suggests that the public supports more prevention and early intervention strategies for youths and favors rehabilitation rather than punishment. These conflicting trends suggest that we are at a crossroads: the juvenile justice system can continue its harsh, reactive stance, or it can choose a more proactive approach. The members of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences have an opportunity to play an active role in the development of criminal justice policy.     

JUVENILE CRIME AND WHY WAIVER IS NOT THE ANSWER

Many states deal with the issue of juvenile crime by charging juveniles as adults. This is done by a method of waiver. Waiver allows adult criminal courts to have the power to exercise jurisdiction over juveniles.¹ In effect, a juvenile is tried and sentenced as an adult when his or her case is waived (removed) from the juvenile court to the adult court. Waiver in juvenile (youths seventeen and younger) cases should never be allowed because juvenile offenders are too immature and incompetent to appreciate the nature of their crimes and because the juvenile justice system is a more appropriate place to rehabilitate juvenile offenders.     

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.     

Of Race,Prison, and Perception: Seeking to Account for Racially Divergent Views on the Relative Severity of Sanctions

Several studies have found that offenders do not always perceive prison to be a harsher sanction than community-based punishments. Moreover, the literature shows that white offenders tend to estimate prison to be relatively more severe than do black offenders. The present study develops and tests eight possible explanations for the observed racial gap in perceptions. Relying on survey data from inmates in a large urban jail to establish sentencing preferences for black and white inmates, multivariate analyses show that the racial gap was attenuated but not eliminated by the explanations. This persistent racial difference in opinions of sanction severity is consistent with differential perceptions of criminal justice system fairness and merits additional research. The race gap has implications for theories on the effects of incarceration as well as sentencing practice.     

Risk assessment vs real prediction: The prediction problem and public trust

Confusing risk assessment and the prediction of individual behavior has led to false claims which, if translated into juvenile court or adult sentencing policies (selective incapacitation, for example), may lead to further erosion in public confidence in the justice system. Considerable emphasis has been placed on the consequences of false positives in the literature and in this paper. The false negative has different but equally damaging effects because the impression may be given that increasing the severity of sanctions for selected serious offenders is the solution to juvenile delinquency and adult crime. Analysis of official police records for three birth cohorts from Racine, Wisconsin, reveals that, although high-risk groups produce a disproportionate share of the delinquent and criminal behavior recorded in police reports and juveniles in high-risk groups continue into adult crime disproportionately to others, serious juvenile offenders still account for only a portion of the serious offenses that will ultimately be committed by adults. Therefore, selective incapacitation of early offenders may take only a small bite out of crime. When referrals rather than police contacts were utilized as the predictor variable, there was little difference in predictive efficiency.     

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.     

Stereotypes influence beliefs about transfer and sentencing of juvenile offenders

Despite sharp drops in juvenile crime since the mid-1980s, punitive policies regarding juveniles who commit serious offenses still exist. We assessed beliefs about two such practices: transferring offenders from the juvenile justice to the criminal justice system, and subjecting them to sentences of life without parole (LWOP). We examined whether stereotypes about juvenile offenders – the extent to which people believe they are dispositionally violent superpredators versus economically and socially impoverished wayward youth – influence support for these policies. We measured 321 participants’ beliefs about the causes of juvenile crime and juveniles’ potential for recidivism and rehabilitation. Using vignette methodology and actual case facts, we described a 13-, 17-, or 21-year-old offender who murdered a stranger or abusive parent, and asked whether he should be transferred to criminal court and sentenced to LWOP. As endorsement of the superpredator stereotype increased, so did support for these practices. Offenders who murdered an abusive parent were shown more leniency. Older offenders were generally treated harsher, except by people with strong superpredator stereotypes who, on the issue of LWOP appropriateness, did not distinguish among juveniles of different ages. Findings suggest that stereotypes can influence judgments in cases involving juveniles and indirectly affect policy-making about juvenile offending.     

The effect of transfer mechanism from juvenile court on conviction on a target offense in criminal court

The question of whether juvenile offenders should be handled in criminal court has been addressed by a number of studies. However, few have examined the effectiveness of the type of transfer mechanism and how it relates to protecting the public. Whether the mechanism used to transfer juvenile offenders to criminal court has any effect on the likelihood of being convicted of a target offense criminal court is examined here. It was found that the juveniles sampled in this study had a greater chance of being convicted on their target offense in criminal court if they were sent there via judicial waiver than if they were excluded from juvenile court jurisdiction by statute.