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.     

THE OBSERVER

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The Australian Republic Referendum, 1999

The 1999 Australian republic referendum was intended to finalise the nation-building process begun in the mid-nineteenth century and to exploit growing national consciousness in the wake of post-World War II cosmopolitan immigration and the 1988 bicentenary. Despite strong republican support recorded by opinion polls and a broadly favourable media climate the proposal to institute a republic was defeated. The article summarises the campaign and explores some of the reasons that have been advanced, including the part played by the prime minister, for its outcome; it concludes that 'the model' might have been a contributory factor, but probably not the sole explanation. A re-run is unlikely before the election of a sympathetic, probably Labor, government. The episode illustrates the immensity of the difficulty facing republicans in Britain where similarly favourable conditions are inconceivable in the foreseeable future.