NCJ Number
156949
Journal
Juvenile and Family Court Journal Volume: 46 Issue: 3 Dated: (Summer 1995) Pages: 17-35
Date Published
1995
Length
19 pages
Annotation
This article examines the impact of a tougher approach to criminal sanctions on the process of transferring a serious juvenile offender to adult court through the waiver of juvenile court jurisdiction.
Abstract
The recent increase in the use of juvenile waiver can be seen as a response to criticism of the rehabilitative ideal and an attempt to answer retribution and deterrence advocates who claim that the juvenile justice system fails to punish offenders adequately. There are several types of waiver, including prosecutorial waiver, based on concurrent jurisdiction between adult and juvenile courts for some offenses; judicial waiver, which is the most commonly used method; and legislative or automatic waiver, which places some juvenile offenders in the adult criminal justice system at the time of arrest. This analysis of changes in judicial and legislative waiver statutes between 1979 and 1995 focuses on whether State statutes reflect the public shift from support for rehabilitation to an emphasis on tougher sanctions during this period. The results indicate that an increase in the number of offenses excluded from juvenile court jurisdiction and a lowering of the age when criminal culpability attaches are indicative of a move by State legislatures toward more punitive social control measures for serious juvenile offenders. 2 tables and 105 notes