Teenage Felons and Waiver Hearings: Some Recent Trends, 1980-1988

Abstract

An analysis of recent trends in juvenile waiver or transfer hearings in four states reveals that these hearings are increasingly used as avenues whereby officials may impose more serious penalties on youthful offenders charged with serious crimes. While the present research finds no evidence suggesting that juvenile delinquency is increasing or changing from the pattern of delinquency in previous years, the waiver or transfer appears to be used more frequently for juveniles in the 15-17 age range in order to subject them to the jurisdiction of criminal courts. Increased use of waivers seems closely associated with public rejection of rehabilitation and growing support for the “just-desserts” philosophy of punishment in criminal justice. However, the present investigation suggests that waivers do not automatically result in more severe penalties for most juveniles waived to criminal courts.

Predicting sentencing outcomes and time served for juveniles transferred to criminal court in a rural northwestern state

“…The findings supported the notion that juveniles were less likely to be sentenced to incarceration in the adult system than they would have been had they remained in the juvenile system (Bortner, 1986;Champion, 1989;Kinder et al, 1995;Redding, 2003). On the other hand, others found the sentence outcome to be contingent on offense type, with nonviolent offenders being incarcerated more often in the juvenile court (Barnes & Franz, 1989;Clement, 1997;Fagan, 1995;Podkopacz & Feld, 1996, Redding, 2003 and violent offenders being incarcerated more often in the adult criminal court (Barnes & Franz, 1989;Clement, 1997;Fagan, 1995;Houghtalin & Mays, 1991;Myers, 2003b;Podkopacz & Feld, 1996;Redding, 2003;Snyder et al, 2000;Strom & Smith, 1998).…”

“…Accordingly, the juvenile justice system underwent a bget toughQ transformation similar to the adult criminal system. Legal scholars and criminologists called the conversion a criminalization (Champion, 1989;Feld, 1993;Jensen & Metsger, 1994).…”

“…Some of the studies examined what characteristics youth transferred to criminal court had in an effort to predict the probability of transfer (Barnes & Franz, 1989;Fagan & Deschenes, 1990;Myers, 2003b;Podkopacz & Feld, 1996;Poulos & Orchowsky, 1994;Singer, 1993;Snyder, Sickmund, & Poe-Yamagata, 2000). Others examined sentencing outcomes (Barnes & Franz, 1989;Bortner, 1986;Champion, 1989;Clement, 1997;Houghtalin & Mays, 1991;Kinder, Veneziano, Fichter, & Azuma, 1995;Snyder et al, 2000), sentence length (Bortner, 1986;Fritsch, Caeti, & Hemmens, 1996;Kurlychek & Johnson, 2004;Podkopacz & Feld, 1996), and the amount of time served (Clement, 1997;Fritsch et al, 1996) for juveniles waived into adult criminal court. Additionally, recidivism rates of waived youth were determined (Bishop, Frazier, Lanza-Kaduce, & Winner, 1996;Fagan, 1995;Langan & Levin, 2002;Myers, 2003a;Podkopacz & Feld, 1996;Winner, Lanza-Kaduce, Bishop, & Frazier, 1997).…”

Juveniles in Adult Prisons: Problems and Prospects

“…The "new" answer was once again to turn to the adult system to deal with those youth who could not be rehabilitated within the juvenile system (Champion, 1989;Feld 1987). The result of this movement was twofold: first, legislation designed to get tough with juvenile crime focused on ways to expand transfer laws, especially with regards to age, offense requirements and the responsibility of who makes the decision to transfer (National Coalition of State Juvenile Justice Advisory Groups, 1993) and second, more juveniles were being transferred into adult court than at any previous time (Schwartz, 1989).…”

“…Some researchers posed questions regarding transfer policies (Sanborn, 1994). Empirical studies have included the examination of factors that impact the decision to transfer (Poulos and Orchowsky, 1994;Lee, 1994); dispositions of juveniles transferred to criminal court (Fagan, 1991;Houghtalin, and Mays, 1991;Champion, 1989); differences in the dispositions of certified and non certified juvenile offenders (Kinder et al, 1995) and the impact of juvenile transfer on violent juvenile crime (Jensen and Metsger, 1994). What is missing from the literature is research designed to determine the impact of juvenile transfer Downloaded by [Nanyang Technological University] at 07:11 01 June 2016 on the adult criminal justice system and an examination of the views of the adult correctional administrators who are faced with the increasing numbers of juveniles in the adult system.…”