Be Careful What You Wish For: The Comparative Impacts of Juvenile versus Criminal Court Sanctions on Recidivism among Adolescent Felony Offenders

• NCJ Number: 206153
• Author(s): Jeffrey Fagan; Aaron Kupchick; Akiva Liberman
• Date Published: 2003
• Length: 86 pages
• Grant Number(s): 97-JN-FX-01
• Sponsoring Agency: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP)
• Sale Source: Columbia University
• Publication Format: Document (Online)
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: Downloaded on July 15, 2004.

Annotation

This paper presents the results of a federally supported study to assess whether prosecuting and sentencing adolescent felony offenders in the criminal court, as opposed to the juvenile court leads to harsher punishment, and whether harsher punishment translate into improved public safety.

Abstract

For the past quarter century, debate has focused on the most serious and violent juvenile offenders and the pressure to increase the use of adult court for these adolescents. However, there lies within this debate the controversial question of exactly which violent, serious or chronic young offenders should be sentenced and punished as juveniles or adults and the comparative outcome results of prosecution and punishment in criminal and juvenile courts. This study, supported by the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention capitalized on a State jurisdictional boundary running through a single metropolitan area to create a natural experiment in order to compare sanctions and recidivism of youths prosecuted in juvenile versus criminal (adult) court controlling for contextual or milieu effects such as urbanism, normative regional attitudes on crime and punishment, weapon availability, the prevalence of contributing or mitigating factors, and contemporary statewide political influences. The study compared the outcomes of adolescent offenders arrested and charged with the same offenses in the criminal court than in juvenile court. It was hypothesized that these serious adolescent offenders would receive a more punitive response in the criminal court. The research compared case outcomes and criminal histories for adolescents, ages 15-16 charged in 1992-1993 in juvenile courts or in criminal courts with felony robbery, assault and burglary, with juvenile court cases from three northern New Jersey counties and criminal court cases from matched counties in New York. This study added to previous empirical studies that adolescents prosecuted and sentenced in criminal court are at significantly greater risk of rearrest for violent and felony property offenses, their risks accrue more quickly, and they are more likely to be subsequently incarcerated than matched samples of adolescents prosecuted in juvenile courts. Tables and appendices A-B