MEDIATION IN THE LOS ANGELES COUNTY SUPERIOR COURT JUVENILE DEPENDENCY COURT

This article presents the results of a 9-month interdisciplinary task force convened to review the mediation process in the juvenile dependency court and to develop guidelines for its operation by the conciliation court, stemming from a grand jury recommendation.     

SPECIALIZATION IN JUVENILE COURT CAREERS

The study of specialization in offending careers is relevant to the key theoretical issue of whether different types of offending reject only one underlying theoretical construct (such as delinquent tendency) or several different constructs. This research improves on previous studies of specialization in offending careers in three ways: (1) It is based on the complete juvenile court careers of a very large sample of offenders (nearly 70,000). (2) It uses a fine-grained classification of 21 offense types. (3) It uses a new measure of the strength of specialization, the Forward Specialization Coefficient (FSC). Both transition matrices and offending careers are studied.
The major findings from the transition matrices are (1) there was a small but significant degree of specialization in offending superimposed on a great deal of versatility: (2) the degree of specialization tended to increase with successive referrals, and this was not due to more versatile offenders dropping out: and (3) the relative extent to which offenders specialized in different offenses held for two jurisdictions (Maricopa County, Arizona, and Utah), both sexes, and all ages.
The analyses of offending careers showed that the most specialized offenses were runaway, burglary, motor vehicle theft, liquor violations, incorrigibility, curfew, truancy, and drugs. Nearly 20 percent of the offenders were identified as specialists. The conclusion is that, while offending was versatile to a first approximation, delinquency theories should attempt to explain specialization and specialists in order to yield more accurate quantitative predictions about offending careers.     

THEORIZING SANCTIONING IN A CRIMINALIZED JUVENILE COURT*

Recent juvenile justice reforms have produced increasingly complex and criminal‐like approaches to sanctioning youths, yet research to date has not examined the full range of newly available sentencing options nor systematically drawn on theories of adult sentencing. The present study addresses these issues by developing competing hypotheses about the effects of legal, extralegal, and processing factors, as well as sentencing options, in a highly proceduralized and criminalized juvenile court in Texas. These hypotheses are then tested using quantitative and qualitative data. The results are largely consistent with derived expectations and do not support arguments that increased proceduralization and criminalization of juvenile courts will eliminate consideration of age, gender, or race/ethnicity in sentencing decisions.     

JUVENILE COURT DISPOSITIONS:

The research question precipitated by the concern for “just sanctions” and effective treatment for future juvenile programs is: What have been the criterion used by juvenile court decision makers in disposition sentencing. Disposition is analyzed for both nonstatus and status offense groups. The method of analysis is a stepwise discriminant function. The findings indicate the importance of legalistic variables and a social class bias in the dispositions of both offense groups. The social class bias is much stronger in the case of status offenders and increases at subsequent court disposition levels. These data support the labeling-conflict contention of class bias in the application of sanctions and suggest a policy directive for future delinquency prevention programs.     

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.     

PUBLIC OPINION AND THE FOUNDATION OF THE JUVENILE COURT*

Over 100 years ago, juvenile courts emerged out of the belief that juveniles are different from adults—less culpable and more rehabilitatable—and can be "saved" from a life of crime and disadvantage. Today, the juvenile justice system is under attack through increasing calls to eliminate it and enactment of statutes designed to place younger offenders in the adult justice system. However, little evidence exists that policy makers have taken the full range of public views into account. At the same time, scholarly accounts of calls to eliminate the juvenile justice system have neglected the role of public opinion. The current study addresses this situation by examining public views about 1) abolishing juvenile justice and 2) the proper upper age of original juvenile court jurisdiction. Particular attention is given to the notion that child‐saving and "get tough" orientations influence public views about juvenile justice. The analyses suggest support for the lingering appeal of juvenile justice among the public and the idea that youth can be “saved,” as well as arguments about the politicization and criminalization of juvenile justice. They also highlight that the public, like states, holds variable views about the appropriate age of juvenile court jurisdiction. We discuss the implications of the study and avenues for future research. Why is it not just and proper to treat these juvenile offenders, as we deal with the neglected children, as a wise and merciful father handles his own child whose errors are not discovered by the authorities? Why is it not the duty of the state, instead of asking merely whether a boy or a girl has committed a specific offense, to find out what he is, physically, mentally, morally, and then if it learns that he is treading the path that leads to criminality, to take him in charge, not so much to punish as to reform, not to degrade but to uplift, not to crush but to develop, to make him not a criminal but a worthy citizen.     

THE CONCEPTUALIZATION OF DISCRIMINATION IN THE JUVENILE JUSTICE PROCESS: THE IMPACT OF ADMINISTRATIVE FACTORS AND SCREENING DECISIONS ON JUVENILE COURT DISPOSITIONS

Research on race, sex, and social class discrimination in the juvenile justice process has yielded mixed results. These conflicting findings have been attributed to the use of diverse research strategies and various methodological shortcomings. There are, however, two potentially important issues that have not been previously addressed: the need to examine the juvenile justice system as a process, rather than as a series of separate and unrelated decision points, and the failure to control for the impact of administrative factors such as pretrial detention. The purpose of the research reported here is to examine the impact of race, sex, and social class on juvenile court dispositions while controlling for pretrial detention and appropriate legal factors. The analytical strategy employed permits an examination of the impact of these factors over three stages of the juvenile justice process: referral, adjudication, and disposition.
Findings indicate that while legal factors and pretrial detention decline in importance as predictors of disposition as one moves from an examination of all referred to adjudicated youth, race and social class become more important. These results are discussed in terms of their methodological significance and their implications for the conceptualization of discrimination in the juvenile justice process.     

GENDER BIAS IN THE DISPOSITION OF JUVENILE COURT REFERRALS: THE EFFECTS OF TIME AND LOCATION*

Theory based on sex role traditionalism predicts a more punishing decision for female than for male offenders, while theory based on chivalry (paternalism) predicts greater leniency by the courts for female offenders. This paper tests these two models using a large sample (36,680) of juvenile court referrals in metropolitan, urban, and rural locations spanning a nine-year period. Nonparametric analysis of covariance is used to control for differences in offense, previous contact with the court system, and other background variables. Evidence of gender bias in dispositions was found. The patterns of bias across time, location, offense committed, and previous referral to the court system supports the persistence of chivalry and a decline in sex role traditionalism in court decisions. Greater punishment for girls than boys was found only for repeat offenders committing more serious offenses. Even in those cases, girls were more likely to be taken out of the home environment by the courts through a custody transfer while boys were more likely to be sent to a lock-up facility.     

THE FUTURE OF THE JUVENILE COURT: Implications for Correctional Manpower and Training

The following is an excerpt from a paper prepared for the Joint Commission on Correctional Manpower and Training. This consultants' paper dealing with the area of the Juvenile Court is the first of its type to be published by the Commission. Chapter VI has to do with “DISPOSITIONAL ALTERNATIVES”.     

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.     

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.