Adult Court

Abstract

A growing body of scholarship has assessed the treatment of juvenile offenders in adult criminal courts in the United States. These studies have worked to identify potential biases in the criminal sanctioning of juvenile offenders by examining whether these outcomes are simply due to legal factors such as the severity of the offense or prior criminal involvement, or extra‐legal factors such as race/ethnicity, age, or gender. Other studies have examined broader contextual factors surrounding the courts themselves to assess the influence that these factors may have on the sanctioning of young offenders. Although inconsistencies in the findings remain and data and methodological deficiencies plague many of the studies in this area, there is sufficient evidence to suggest that the US criminal justice system considers legally irrelevant factors when determining the severity of criminal sanctions for minors.