NCJ Number
78791
Date Published
1981
Length
30 pages
Annotation
Findings and recommendations are presented from an examination of the effectiveness and impact of New York State's Juvenile Offender Act (JOA) on the State's juvenile justice system.
Abstract
JOA severely limits the discretion of the courts (as opposed to the prosecutor) to sentence or place children in nonpenal programs and lowers the age of criminal responsibility to 13 or 14 years. Recommendations to restructure the act are based on the overall conclusion that JOA fails to serve its intended purpose and severely prejudices those children who should not be criminally charged. Recommendations are that (1) every juvenile offender case should be filed initially in the family court; (2) the crimes of first degree burglary, second degree burglary, and second degree robbery should be eliminated as juvenile offenses but retained as designated felonies; (3) the crimes of first degree rape, first degree sodomy, first degree manslaughter, first degree assault, and first degree robbery should be class 'A' designated felonies; and (4) the small number of juvenile offender cases involving second degree murder, first degree manslaughter, first degree rape, first degree sodomy, and first degree arson should be transferred to the criminal courts at the request of the district attorney and only upon a finding of probable cause. In addition, every other juvenile offense case should be transferable to the adult criminal courts at the discretion of the family court and upon the district attorney's request, and the presentment or prosecution of all delinquency cases in the family court should be reviewed. Tabular data and 145 footnotes are provided. (Author abstract modified)