Clinical Evaluation of Juvenile Delinquents Facing Transfer to Adult Court

Clinical evaluations for transfer of juveniles to criminal court: current practices and future research

“…Beyond a matching methodology, systems issues and vaguely worded statutes and definitions specific to the context of transfer evaluations significantly increase the difficulty of offering amenability recommendations (Barnum, 1987). First, the definition of treatment in amenability determinations is unclear.…”

“…First, the definition of treatment in amenability determinations is unclear. Clinical examiners may tend to consider only traditional therapy and exclude other approaches, such as special education, work programs, foster care, advocacy, residential treatment, vocational treatment, and incarceration (Barnum, 1987;Quinn, 1992). Further, each clinician's personal conceptualization of delinquency etiology (e.g., psychodynamic vs. social-learning) may influence the treatment approaches considered and recommended.…”

“…Whereas we believe that it is unethical to consider a juvenile``unamenable'' due to these systems issues alone, scholars disagree on how to address the limitations in transfer evaluations. Some authors write that it is the responsibility of the forensic examiner to provide recommendations that appropriately consider these limitations (Barnum, 1987;Ewing, 1990;Melton et al, 1987). Others, however, suggest that the examiner provide a detailed amenability determination that considers unlimited treatment possibilities and leaves service availability issues to the judge (Quinn, 1992).…”

“…Barnum (1987) suggests that clinicians identify the specific areas and degree of expected improvement, while allowing the court to choose how to apply that information. We suggest that refining the definition of amenability might allow for more structured and useful information to be provided to the court.…”

The Transfer of Juveniles to Adult Court in Canada and the United States: Confused Agendas and Compromised Assessment Procedures

“…Due to the limitations inherent in violence risk assessments, and particularly in juvenile assessments, such evaluations have been discouraged in the literature until quite recently (Barnum, 1987;Ewing, 1990). Currently, with the substantial advances that have been made in the field of violence risk prediction, clinicians appear to be better positioned in making more accurate estimates in a variety of populations (Salekin, 2002a).…”