NCJ Number
209572
Date Published
2005
Length
104 pages
Annotation
This book challenges the policy of placing more juveniles under the jurisdiction of adult criminal courts in the belief that the juvenile justice system is incapable of rehabilitating them or of imposing sufficiently severe sanctions.
Abstract
In the 1990's, the pervasive belief that crime is best dealt with by increasing the punitive response of the criminal justice system led almost every State to enact laws that make it easier to place juvenile offenders under the jurisdiction of the adult criminal justice system instead of the juvenile justice system. The types of offenses that mandate or make youth eligible for transfer to adult court have continued to expand, and many States have shifted the decision about whether to transfer a youth to adult court from the juvenile court judge to the prosecutor, who often proceeds with few guidelines and limited formal review of the decisions. This trend has continued despite evidence that this practice is very costly, is not implemented systematically, has a disproportionately adverse impact on minority youth, and does little to increase public safety. The bulk of relevant research has discounted the rationales for removing more and more youth from the jurisdiction of the juvenile justice system. Research has shown that even the most hardened juvenile offenders are amenable to treatment, which the juvenile justice system is better able to provide than the adult system; and juvenile courts and corrections systems are fully capable of imposing sanctions that match and even exceed those available to adult courts. A number of chapters document the efforts of many States to reform current policies and rebuild their juvenile justice systems. A 64-item bibliography and reports from the Coalition for Juvenile Justice