Punitive Necessity of Waiver (From The Changing Borders of Juvenile Justice: Transfer of Adolescents to the Criminal Court, P 207-224, 2000, Jeffrey Fagan and Franklin E. Zimring, eds. -- See NCJ-192949)

• NCJ Number: 192955
• Author(s): Franklin E. Zimring
• Date Published: 2000
• Length: 18 pages
• Sale Source: University of Chicago Press
• Publication Format: Book (Hardbound)
• Publication Type: Legislation/Policy Analysis
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This chapter argues that waiver of juveniles to adult court by judicial decision is a structural necessity in a juvenile court system committed to protect its subjects from destructive punishments.

Abstract

The first section of this chapter argues that the necessity of transfers must be understood in the context of the functions and limits of juvenile courts. The modern juvenile court is an institution that holds juveniles accountable for intentional wrongs but is restrained in both the kind and amount of punishment it can administer. The second section of the chapter examines three different structural accommodations to the need for serious punishment for a few youths: wholesale transfer of jurisdiction to criminal courts, the expansion of punishment powers available within the juvenile court so that even the most terrible crimes can meet their just deserts in a juvenile court, and the selective transfer of cases. The author prefers the selective transfer as the superior method for meeting the need for serious punishment in extraordinary cases. The concluding section of the chapter describes a few of the minimum conditions necessary for justice at the interface between juvenile and criminal court. The author advises that without appropriate substantive provisions for the management of transferred cases, no procedural restriction on the method of transfer can rescue the system from incoherence. 17 references