Youth in Adult Courts An Overview of the Issue

1
Youth in Adult Courts An Overview of the Issue

• Jeffrey Butts, Ph.D.Program on Youth
  JusticeURBAN INSTITUTE

Coalition for Juvenile Justice Fall Training
Conference Miami Beach, Florida November 7, 2002
Interactive Research Guide
Also includes
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Youth in Adult Courts
Summary

• Despite two decades of research, we have not
  found a crime-reduction effect from criminal
  court transfer
• Criminal court transfer is an inexact science
• Only the most violent, chronic juvenile
  offenders get more severe more certain
  punishment in adult court
• The majority of youth moved to adult court get
  less punishment and fewer rehabilitative
  services
• The deterrent value of transfer is not clear (at
  best)

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Youth in Adult Courts
4 Topics

• How are youth transferred?
• Why do we transfer them?
• What effect does it have?
• So what?

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How Are Youth Transferred?
Different terms used in state law

• Waiver
• Transfer
• Direct file
• Remand
• Bind over
• Certification
• Exclusion

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How Are Youth Transferred?
Various mechanisms used by states

• Judicial waiver

• Presumptive/mandatory waiver

• Prosecutor direct file or concurrent
  jurisdiction

• Legislative exclusion (automatic waiver)

• Blended sentencing (transfer, in effect)

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How Are Youth Transferred?
If the question is, how do offenders under age
18 get to adult court? There is one other
mechanism
Excluding all 16- and 17-year-olds from juvenile
court
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How Are Youth Transferred?
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How Many Youth Are Transferred?
The decision whether to consider these 16- and
17-year-olds as transfers has a profound effect
on the size of the transferred population
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How Many Youth Are Transferred?
Nobody really knows exactly but we have various
estimates
All forms of judicial waiver Prosecutorial
discretion All forms of legislative exclusion
8,000
NCJJ / OJJDP data
4 to 10,000?
( 2,700 in Florida )
50,000 to 200,000?
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Youth in Adult Courts
4 Topics

• How are youth transferred?
• Why do we transfer them?
• What effect does it have?
• So what?

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Why Are Youth Transferred?
Most people would say

• Reduce crime
• Hold youth accountable
• Increase public safety

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Why Are Youth Transferred?
These are testable hypotheses Does transfer
increase?

• Incapacitation
• Specific deterrence
• General deterrence

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Implied Hypotheses
More incapacitation
Transferring young offenders to adult court means
they will be incarcerated, and this reduces
crime, by that person, at least for the time of
imprisonment
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Implied Hypotheses
More specific deterrence
Being transferred once makes an offender less
likely to recidivate because he/she will not want
to be transferred again
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Implied Hypotheses
More general deterrence
Youth in general are less likely to commit
crimes, because they see others being transferred
and want to avoid it themselves
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Questions Asked by Research
- Are transferred youth more likely to be
incarcerated and for longer terms?
Does transfer increase incapacitation?
- Are transferred youth less likely than
non-transferred youth to re-offend?
Does transfer increase specific deterrence?
- Are youth in general less likely to offend
when/where transfer is used more?
Does transfer increase general deterrence?
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Youth in Adult Courts
4 Topics

• How are youth transferred?
• Why do we transfer them?
• What effect does it have?
• So what?

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Specific Findings
Incapacitation
?
The chance of incarceration varies widely among
transferred youth -- 20 to 80
Mixed findings
Serious and violent offenders are more likely to
be incarcerated if transferred, but other youth
are not (e.g., Fagan, studied cases in NY vs. NJ)
Some positive findings
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Specific Findings
Fagan Who gets locked up more, longer?
New Jersey Juvenile Courts
New York Criminal Courts
Robbery Cases(ages 16 17)
Burglary Cases(ages 16 17)
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Specific Findings
Specific Deterrence
Youth convicted in criminal court are not less
likely to recidivate in general If there is a
deterrent effect, studies have not identified it
yet, and the conditions necessary to achieve it
are not known Some studies suggest transfer
increases rather than reduces post-release
recidivism (e.g., Bishop, Frazier et al.,
transfers in Florida)
All negative findings
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Specific Findings
Lanza-Kaduce et al. Who is re-arrested more,
faster?
Florida youth in juvenile justice system
Recidivism?
Case Matching Process
Florida youth sentenced in adult court
475 Matched Pairs Same age, sex, race, offense,
priors, most serious prior
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Specific Findings
Lanza-Kaduce et al. Who is re-arrested more,
faster?
Florida youth in juvenile justice system
Recidivism?
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Case Matching Process
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Florida youth sentenced in adult court
315 Best-Matched Pairs Same as before, but also
matched on weapon use, victim injury, property
loss/damage, gang involvement, prior escape
attempts, drug problems, etc.
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Specific Findings
General Deterrence
There is no association between the use of
transfer and rates of juvenile crime
Juvenile crime does not vary systematically
between states according to the availability and
use of transfer Before-and-after studies
find that more transfer does not produce lower
juvenile crime levels (e.g., Simon Singer, New
York)
All negative findings
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Specific Findings
Singer Do new transfer laws reduce crime?
Answer No

• Some crime indicators went down in upstate New
  York, but up in NYC
• Other indicators went down in NYC, but the
  same trends were seen in other large cities
  outside of New York

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Overall Assessment
Transfer is a failure based upon the three tests
mentioned above - Incapacitation - Specific
deterrence - General deterrence Some increase
in incapacitation, but only for the most serious
and violent offenders No clear deterrent effect
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Why Does Transfer Fail?

• The justice system is a system, nobody can
  guarantee a particular sentencing outcome (e.g.,
  Snyder et al. study of expanded transfer in PA)
• Other than the use and length of confinement,
  criminal juvenile courts are not that different
  anymore. Why would we expect offenders to react
  so differently?
• Like capital punishment, extreme sentences in the
  juvenile system are relatively rare and affect
  few people

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So Why Do We Do It?

• Another purpose of punishment
• Retribution
• Powerful symbol of social condemnation
• Widely embraced, even if no empirical connection
  to actual crime reduction

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Youth in Adult Courts
4 Topics

• How are youth transferred?
• Why do we transfer them?
• What effect does it have?
• So what?

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So What?

• Issues for Policymakers
• Is simple retribution a legitimate goal in
  dealing with young offenders? Does the public
  agree?
• If transfer cannot guarantee incarceration, do
  community-based sentences in the adult system
  compare favorably with those in the juvenile
  system?
• Could the growing use of transfer undermine
  what is left of the juvenile justice system?

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So What?

• How could transfer undermine juvenile justice?
• Criminal court trial now seems like the only
  legitimate response to serious youth crime
• The more we remove serious cases from juvenile
  court, the more it looks like kiddie court
• Can a court for non-serious, non-violent, very
  young offenders be politically and fiscally
  viable for long?
• If not, what system will we have for young
  offenders?

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Jeffrey A. Butts Director, Program on Youth
Justice URBAN INSTITUTE
http//youth.urban.org
http//jbutts.com
CLICK Here
to learn more about research on transfer
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Transfer References
Reference List
Interactive Guide to the Research Literature Many
studies about the impact of criminal court
transfer have been published during the past two
decades. Brief summaries and internet links are
provided for some of the most influential and
prominent of these studies. To begin, click on
any portion of the reference list. Note Web
Links require a connection to the internet and a
working browser. Some links may lead to PDF files
requiring the Adobe Acrobat Reader.
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Transfer References
Reference List
Abeyratne, Senarath and Benita Sizemore (1999).
Juveniles Waived to Criminal Courts in Ohio
1995-1997 Adjudication and Disposition.
Columbus, OH Ohio Department of Youth Services.
Bishop, Donna M., Charles E. Frazier, Lonn
Lanza-Kaduce and Lawrence Winner (1996). The
transfer of juveniles to criminal court Does it
make a difference? Crime Delinquency
42171-191. Bortner, M. A. (1986). Traditional
rhetoric, organization realities Remand of
juveniles to adult court. Crime Delinquency
3253-73. Brown, Jodi M., and Patrick A. Langan
(1998). State Court Sentencing of Convicted
Felons, 1994 (Section VI). Washington, D.C. U.S.
Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice
Statistics. Fagan, Jeffrey (1995). Separating the
men from the boys The comparative advantage of
juvenile versus criminal court sanctions on
recidivism among adolescent felony offenders, in
Sourcebook on Serious, Violent, and Chronic
Juvenile Offenders, eds. J. Howell et al.,
Thousand Oaks, CA Sage. and Fagan, Jeffrey
(1996). The comparative advantage of juvenile
versus criminal court sanctions on recidivism
among adolescent felony offenders. Law Policy
1877-113.
Summary
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Summary
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Transfer References
Reference List
Greenwood, Peter W., Albert J. Lipson, Allan
Abrahamse Franklin Zimring (1983). Youth Crime
and Juvenile Justice in California A Report to
the Legislature (R-3016-CSA). Santa Monica, CA
Rand Corporation. Hamparian, Donna M., L. Estep,
S. Muntean, R. Prestino, R. Swisher, P. Wallace
and J.L. White (1982). Youth in Adult Courts
Between Two Worlds. Washington DC U.S.
Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice
and Delinquency Prevention. Jensen, Eric L. and
Linda K. Metsger (1994). A test of the deterrent
effect of legislative waiver on violent juvenile
crime. Crime and Delinquency 4096-104. Lanza-Kadu
ce, Lonn, Charles E. Frazier, Jodi Lane, Donna M.
Bishop (2002). Juvenile Transfer to Criminal
Court Study Final Report. Tallahassee, FL
Florida Department of Juvenile Justice. Levitt,
Steven D. (1998). Juvenile crime and punishment.
Journal of Political Economy 106(6)1156-1185. Mc
Nulty, Elizabeth W. (1996). The transfer of
juvenile offenders to adult court Panacea or
problem? Law Policy 1861-75.
Summary
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Summary
Web Link
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Summary
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Transfer References
Reference List
Podkopacz, Marcy R. and Barry C. Feld (1996). End
of the line An empirical study of judicial
waiver. The Journal of Criminal Law and
Criminology 86(2)449-492. Podkopacz, Marcy R.
and Barry C. Feld (2001). The back-door to
prison Waiver reform, blended sentencing, and
the law of unintended consequences. The Journal
of Criminal Law and Criminology
91(4)997-1072. Poulos, Tammy Meredith, and Stan
Orchowsky (1994). Serious juvenile offenders
Predicting the probability of transfer of
criminal court. Crime Delinquency
403-17. Risler, Edwin A., Tim Sweatman and Larry
Nackerud (1998). Evaluating the Georgia
legislative waiver's effectiveness in deterring
juvenile crime. Research in Social Work Practice
8657-667. Rudman, Cary, Eliot Hartstone, Jeffrey
Fagan and Melinda Moore (1986). Violent youth in
adult court Process and punishment. Crime and
Delinquency 3275-96.
Summary
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Transfer References
Reference List
Singer, Simon (1996). Recriminalizing
Delinquency Violent Juvenile Crime and Juvenile
Justice Reform. Cambridge, EnglandCambridge
University Press. and Singer, Simon I. and
David McDowall (1988). Criminalizing delinquency
The deterrent effects of the New York juvenile
offender law. Law Society Review
22521-535. Snyder, Howard, Melissa Sickmund, and
Eileen Poe-Yamagata (2000). Juvenile Transfers to
Criminal Court in the 1990's Lessons Learned
from Four Studies. Washington, DC U.S.
Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice
and Delinquency Prevention. Winner, Lawrence,
Lonn Lanza-Kaduce, Donna M. Bishop and Charles E.
Frazier (1997). The transfer of juveniles to
criminal court Reexamining recidivism over the
long term. Crime and Delinquency 43548-563.
Summary
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Transfer References
Reference List
Abeyratne and Sizemore (1999) Data indicate that
from 1995 to 1997, 1,547 filings of bindover
occurred in Ohio. The total number of cases
included in the sample for this study, after
eliminating multiple filings, was 1,330.
Comparatively, the juveniles transferred to
criminal court were a tiny fraction of the total
juvenile court adjudications of each year. In
addition to the number of juveniles transferred
to criminal courts between 1995 and 1997, this
report provides demographic profiles of waived
juveniles and the waived juveniles convicted in
criminal court. Data are also provided on the
adjudicated offense, the adjudicated felony
level, and the adjudicated offense type. The
offense history of waived juveniles is also
included, along with county of adjudication,
disposition, convicted offense, convicted felony
level, and convicted offense type. Sentences
received are cited, and data are presented on
plea bargains or indictments for
additional/different offenses and felony levels.
The youths waived to criminal court in Ohio were
predominantly minorities and male. Three-fourths
of adjudicated offenses belonged to Part One
Crimes under Uniform Crime Reporting
classification more than one-half of the youths
waived committed violent crimes. Ninety-five
percent of the waived youths were convicted in
the criminal court. Most (89.6 percent) were
sentenced to imprisonment.
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Transfer References
Reference List
Bishop et al. (1996) Winner et al.
(1997) Tracked recidivism for up to 7 years among
nearly 3,000 Florida youth who were either
retained in juvenile court or transferred to
criminal court (largely by prosecutors). Samples
were matched on on seven criteria most serious
offense number of counts in current case number
of prior referrals to juvenile court most
serious prior offense age gender and, race.
Results suggested that transfer was "more likely
to aggravate recidivism than to stem it" (Winner
et al., 1997 558-559). Transferred and retained
youth had similar patterns of re-offending,
although some property offenders convicted in
criminal court had a lower rate of re-arrest than
their counterparts retained in juvenile court.
Transferred youth generally re-offended more
quickly than did youth retained in the juvenile
justice system, but the prevalence of recidivism
for retained youth eventually caught up to the
level of transferred youth. Among the youth that
recidivated, transferred youth tended to
re-offend more often and more quickly.
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Transfer References
Reference List

• Brown and Langan (1998)
• Excerpts from the report
• In 1994 an estimated 872,000 adults were
  convicted of a felony in State courts. Of them,
  approximately 21,000 were persons under age 18.
• A larger percentage of those under 18 (40) than
  of those 18 or over (19) had a violent crime as
  their conviction offense.
• Among defendants convicted of aggravated
  assaults, 72 of those under age 18 received a
  prison sentence, compared to 49 of those 18 or
  older.
• Among defendants sentenced to prison, those
  under age 18 had about the same length of
  sentence as older defendants for property and
  drug crimes. However, for weapons and violent
  offenses, defendants under age 18 received longer
  sentences on average than those age 18 or older.
• For robbery, defendants under age 18 received an
  average prison sentence of about 10 years--15
  months longer than the average sentence of older
  defendants.

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Transfer References
Reference List

• Bortner (1986)
• 1980 and 1981 data on 214 youth transferred to
  criminal court in an unnamed Western State
• 96 of transferred youth were convicted or plead
  guilty
• 63 received probation as the primary sanction
• 32 resulted in some jail or prison time
• Published Abstract There is little evidence to
  suggest that those juveniles remanded are
  singularly dangerous or intractable, nor is there
  evidence to suggest that their remand enhances
  public safety. In contrast to traditional
  rhetoric, the present analysis suggests that
  organizational and political factors account for
  the high rate of remand. In evidencing a
  willingness to relinquish jurisdiction over a
  small percentage of its clientele, and by
  portraying these juveniles as the most
  intractable and the greatest threat to public
  safety, the juvenile system not only creates an
  effective symbolic gesture regarding protection
  of the public but it also advances its
  territorial interests in maintaining jurisdiction
  over the vast majority of juveniles and
  deflecting more encompassing criticisms of the
  entire system.

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Transfer References
Reference List
Fagan (1995 1996) Collected data on 2 groups of
offenders 1) youth retained in northern New
Jersey's juvenile court system, and 2) similar
youth excluded from southeastern New York's
juvenile courts due to upper age of juvenile
court jurisdiction (age 15 in NY age 17 in NJ)
and some legislative exclusions. All offenders
were age 15 or 16 and charged with burglary or
robbery. Samples selected at random from 2 NJ
counties and 2 NY counties, then matched on legal
and social measures. Robbery offenders in
criminal court were found guilty more often (57)
than their counterparts in juvenile court (46).
Of youth found guilty of robbery, those in
criminal court were more likely to be
incarcerated (46 vs. 18). Youth charged with
burglary in criminal court were no more likely to
be convicted or incarcerated than the matched
sample of youth charged in juvenile court. Youth
charged with robbery who were convicted (or plead
guilty) in adult court re-offended more quickly
and more frequently than comparable youth
adjudicated in juvenile court. Successful periods
of time until re-arrest were 50 percent longer
for robbery offenders sentenced in juvenile court
than for robbery offenders sentenced in criminal
court -- 4 of 5 burglars from both courts were
re-arrested during the follow-up period. No
significant differences were found in time to
re-arrest for convicted or adjudicated burglars.
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Transfer References
Reference List
Greenwood, Lipson, Abrahamse Zimring
(1983) Compared juvenile and adult court outcomes
in three large California jurisdictions for a
sample of cases involving juveniles and young
adults (ages 16-21) charged with armed robbery or
residential burglary. Adult court sentences were
more severe on average, but the difference was
partly due to the juvenile court's differentiated
handling of cases. Aggravating factors (prior
offenses or prior violent offenses) received more
severe responses in juvenile court. Aggravating
factors had less effect on the severity of
criminal court sentences, which were more likely
to be based strictly on the charges
involved. Among Los Angeles armed robbery cases,
for example, juvenile court offenders with two or
more aggravating factors were nearly 3 times as
likely to be sentenced to incarceration as those
with no aggravating factors. The difference was
much smaller in the criminal court.
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Percent of youthful offenders sentenced to terms
of incarceration
Juveniles
Young Adults
Number of Aggravating Factors
Other Links
None
23
41
38
43
One
63
53
Two or More
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Transfer References
Reference List

• Hamparian et al. (1982)
• 1978 data from a multi-state study and
  literature review
• Estimated 12,600 juvenile cases per year sent to
  criminal court
• More than two-thirds were judicial waivers only
  10 automatically excluded by state law
• 91 percent of juveniles tried in criminal court
  were convicted
• More than half the criminal convictions resulted
  in probation, fines, or other non-incarcerative
  sanctions
• 46 of judicial transfers and 39 of prosecutor
  direct files ended in sentences that involved
  any term of incarceration

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Transfer References
Reference List
Jensen Metsger (1994) Compared changes in
juvenile violence in Idaho, which had recently
expanded its transfer laws, to crime in Montana
and Wyoming, which had not changed their transfer
laws. Evaluated the deterrent effect of an
expanded transfer statute passed by Idaho in
1981. The law required criminal-court transfer
for juveniles charged with violent offenses
(e.g., murder, attempted murder, robbery,
forcible rape). The study tracked arrest rates
five years before and five years after the
enactment of the new law, but found no evidence
of a deterrent effect. The rates of violent crime
in Montana and Wyoming were similar to those of
Idaho. The analysis failed to find a significant
difference in rates of youth violence following
the implementation of expanded transfer
provisions.
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Transfer References
Reference List
Lanza-Kaduce et al. (2002) Study measured felony
recidivism among young offenders in Florida who
were either retained in juvenile court and
sanctioned in the juvenile justice system or
transferred to adult court and received criminal
sentences. Like their previous studies using
Florida data, the researchers created equivalent
samples of offenders, matching 475 pairs of
offenders on gender, age, race, offense, number
of charges, previous referrals, and most serious
prior referral offense. Unlike their previous
work, they used more detailed data to create 315
best-matched pairs using a wide range of
factors obtained through direct reviews of agency
case files, including case complexity, weapon
use, victim loss/injury, role of co-defendants,
previous escape charges and defendant failures to
appear, and other variables such as school
functioning, grade levels, and drug and alcohol
use and addiction. Each pair was tracked for
equivalent time periods to detect subsequent
felonies after the defendant had reached age 18.
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Percentage of felony recidivism among matched
pairs of of offenders
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Transfer References
Reference List
Levitt (1998) Analyzed the differences between
states in how severely they punish criminal
offending (judged by the use of incarceration)
and the extent to which arrest rates change after
youth reach the age of criminal responsibility.
Found that in states where juveniles are
punished similarly to adults, arrest rates do not
drop markedly at the age of legal adulthood.
Where states punish adults more than juveniles,
however, violent crime arrests drop 25 percent in
the first year after individuals are treated as
adults in the courts. This was interpreted as
possible support for a general deterrent effect
from expanded use of criminal court transfer.
The study examined only aggregate arrest rates,
however, and did not track the link between
severity of punishment and criminal behavior by
individual youth. In addition, the data used for
the study were from 1978 to 1993, just before the
sudden drop in violent crime among both adults
and juveniles. The findings do not address
whether the empirical relationship reported by
Levitt survived the turnaround in crime rates
during the mid- to late-1990s.
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Transfer References
Reference List

• McNulty (1996)
• 92 of a sample of transferred cases were
  convicted
• 43 of those transferred cases received a
  sentence involving incarceration
• 49 of transferred cases resulted in probation
  as the most serious sanction

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Transfer References
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Podkopacz and Feld (1996) Followed transferred
and non-transferred youthful offenders in
Hennepin County, Minnesota. Transferred youth
were more likely to re-offend (58 percent versus
42 percent over 24 months at large). Youth
convicted in criminal court were more likely to
be sentenced to confinement (85) than were youth
handled in juvenile court (63), even after
controlling for the seriousness of offenses.
Youth convicted of offenses carrying presumptive
terms of incarceration (e.g., violent offenses),
received much longer sentences from the criminal
court (roughly 4 years) than from juvenile court
(approximately 9 months). The relationship
reversed, however, for youth convicted of
non-presumptive offenses (usually property).
Youth adjudicated for these offenses in juvenile
court were sentenced to longer periods of
incarceration (about 6 months) than were youth
convicted in criminal court (about 4.5 months).
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Transfer References
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• Podkopacz and Feld (2001)
• Reviewed case processing and trial outcomes for
  young offenders in Hennepin County, Minnesota
  before and after the enactment of Minnesotas
  blended sentencing statute in 1995. The new law
  had several impacts on the handling of young
  offenders
• The number of youth eligible for adult
  sanctions increased dramatically.
• The number of youth actually certified for
  adult court trial, however, was relatively
  unchanged compared to the volume of
  certifications before 1995.
• The biggest increase was in the number of youth
  deemed inappropriate for adult-court
  certification directly, but appropriate for
  Extended Jurisdiction Juvenile status (or,
  EJJ).
• The EJJ provision allowed courts to handle
  youth in juvenile court (with adult-like
  procedural guarantees) and then impose a lengthy
  adult sentence, which would be stayed pending
  a determination of the youths amenability
  to sanctioning in the juvenile system. Revocation
  of EJJ status for these youth, according to
  the authors, placed youth at risk of entering the
  adult system through the back door.
• The change in the law made the juvenile
  sanctioning process more complex and more
  contentious, and the youth who were at risk of
  adult sanctioning for the first time were
  disproportionately minority and female.

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Transfer References
Reference List
Poulos and Orchowsky (1994) Under the Virginia
law, a child of 15 or older who is charged with a
felony can be transferred to criminal court. This
study sought to identify the legal and extralegal
factors that make it more likely that a juvenile
offender will be transferred to criminal court.
This was accomplished by comparing a sample of
364 serious juvenile offenders who were
transferred and convicted in criminal court with
363 offenders who were eligible for transfer but
were instead incarcerated within the juvenile
justice system in a juvenile learning center.
Commitment to a learning center is the most
severe sanction available to Virginia's juvenile
courts, short of transfer. Variables examined
were put into five categories demographic,
current offense, victim-related, drug/alcohol
abuse treatment and prior criminal or delinquency
record. Thirteen of the factors considered were
found to be statistically significant in
predicting the outcome of a transfer
determination. Among these are the current
offense, prior record and commitment history and
the age of the offender.
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Transfer References
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Risler, Sweatman, and Nackerud (1998) Researchers
in Georgia failed to detect a significant
difference in the rate of juvenile offending
following enactment of expanded transfer
provisions. The findings suggested that the
broader use of criminal court transfer did not
have a general deterrent effect on
youth. Published Abstract "In an effort to curb
the reported increases in violent juvenile crime,
the growing trend of state legislatures is the
removal of crimes specified as serious from the
jurisdiction of the juvenile court. Having been
legislatively waived, these offenses are placed
within the jurisdiction of the superior court,
and the offender, regardless of age, is tried as
an adult. This investigation reports on the
deterrent effect of the Georgia legislative
waiver passed in 1994. A quasi-experimental
cohort design is ued in a comparison of the mean
arrest rates for juveniles arrested for the
specified crimes before and after the law's
enactment. The analysis of the data suggests
that there were no significant reductions in the
mean arrest rates for the offenses specified by
the law. Findings are consistent with studies
that evaluated the legislative waiver in other
states and suggest that the law does not reduce
serious juvenile crime."
A - F
G - M
N - R
S - Z
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52
Transfer References
Reference List

• Rudman et al. (1986)
• Tracked juvenile and criminal court outcomes for
  177 violent youth considered for transfer in four
  jurisdictions.
• 40 retained in juvenile court
• 60 transferred to criminal court
• Those receiving incarceration longer than 2
  years
• 43 in juvenile court
• 88 in criminal court
• Differences in sentencing may have been due to
  prosecutor/judge selection of more serious cases
  for transfer.

A - F
G - M
N - R
S - Z
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53
Transfer References
Reference List
Singer (1996) Examined the impact of New York
State law that automatically transferred any
juvenile from over age 12 who committed one of
several violent offenses, including murder,
robbery, and serious assault. The new law
required juveniles to serve relatively long
sentences in secure facilities. Juveniles
convicted of 2nd Degree Murder were mandated to a
sentence of not less than 5 years. Offenders age
14 and older convicted of other violent offenses
were required to serve similarly long sentences.
Evaluated the general deterrent effect of the
law using interrupted time series and regression
models to compare monthly arrest rates for youth
affected by the law with two groups of youth not
affected Philadelphia juveniles and New York
youth ages 16 to 18 and thus not eligible for
juvenile court. The new law had no consistent or
significant effects on juvenile violence. In most
instances where arrest rates appeared to fall
after enactment of the policy, the effect was not
consistent across the State. Rates may have
dropped for some offenses in upstate New York but
not in New York City (or vice versa), raising
doubts about the influence of the statewide
policy. Where arrest rates did drop in New York
City, there were usually comparable declines in
Philadelphia where transfer laws had not changed
substantially. Results indicate that "a switch
in legal setting and an increase in the severity
of punishment does not necessarily lead to a
reduction in violent juvenile crime" (Singer,
1996164).
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54
Transfer References
Reference List
Snyder, Sickmund, and Poe-Yamagata (2000) Prior
to 1996, Pennsylvania relied largely on judicial
waiver to send serious juvenile offenders to
adult court. That year, a new law automatically
transferred many juveniles who were routinely
waived by judges but also targeted youth that
would have been unlikely candidates for waiver
(i.e., very young offenders, females, and those
with limited arrest records). Researchers tracked
court outcomes for 473 juveniles who met the new
criteria for automatic exclusion. Each case was
followed through several stages of prosecution
and trial. In half of the cases targeted for
exclusion, criminal courts either declined to
prosecute (19) or sent the youth back to
juvenile court (31). Even when cases were
approved for criminal prosecution, more than half
ended in dismissal, probation, or other sentences
not involving incarceration. The youth who were
least likely to be convicted and incarcerated by
the criminal court were similar to youth least
likely to have been waived in the pre-1996 system
(i.e., younger, no use of weapons, few prior
offenses). The new law swept many younger and
less serious offenders into adult court and the
system adapted by dismissing more cases prior to
trial, returning more youth to juvenile court,
and imposing more community-based sentences.
Youth ending up in jail or prison were basically
the same type of youth waived before 1996.
Juvenile judges waived fewer cases before the new
law, but most (77) of those waived were
incarcerated. Of those automatically excluded by
the new law, just 19 were incarcerated following
criminal court conviction.
A - F
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55
Transfer References
Reference List
Links to Other Resources About Criminal Court
Transfer
A - F

• PBS Frontline

G - M

• Coalition for Juvenile Justice (CJJ) Position
  Statement on Transfer

N - R

• Urban Institute

• Building Blocks for Youth

S - Z

• Joint Center for Poverty Research

Return to Presentation
Essays from the Institute of Law, Psychiatry,
Public Policy

• Recidivism

• Sentencing

Guide to Research

• Deterrence

• Legal Consequences

Other Links
Books from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur
Foundation Series

• The Changing Borders of Juvenile Justice

• Youth on Trial