In an effort to curb the reported increases in violent juvenile crime, the growing trend of state legislatures is the removal of crimes specified as serious from the jurisdiction of the juvenile court. Having been legislatively waived, these offenses are placed within the jurisdiction of the superior court, and the offender, regardless of age, is tried as an adult. This investigation reports on the deterrent effect of the Georgia legislative waiver passed in 1994. A quasi-experimental cohort design is used in a comparison of the mean arrest rates for juveniles arrested for the specified crimes before and after the law's enactment. The analysis of the data suggests that there were no significant reductions in the mean arrest rates for the offenses specified by the law. Findings are consistent with studies that evaluated the legislative waiver in other states and suggest that the law does not reduce serious juvenile crime.Child welfare reformers of the early century believed that the criminal behavior of children, who were victims of poverty and other social ills, was the result of circumstances beyond the children's control. Before 1899, children younger than age 7 were considered incapable of criminal acts. Although the responsibility for behavior of children between the ages of 7 and 14 was debatable, common law allowed for treating youths as young as 14 years as responsible adults in the court system (Feld, 1993;Platt, 1977).A benevolent court separated from the harsh and retributive adult system was established for juveniles that would provide solutions to the problems and address the needs of the individual youth. For decades, under this legal scheme, the law did not hold accountable those offenders under the age of majority in the same manner as it did adults who were considered criminals.