Drawing the Line

• Published date: 01 July 2018
• Date: 01 July 2018
• DOI: 10.1177/1541204017708017
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article
Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice
2018, Vol. 16(3) 263-278
Drawing the Line: Empirical
ª The Author(s) 2017
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DOI: 10.1177/1541204017708017
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Natural Experiment Raising the
Age of Criminal Responsibility
Eric Fowler1 and Megan C. Kurlychek1
Abstract
Every state maintains some mechanism by which youths can be tried as adults in criminal courts.
While scholars have long debated the inherent benefits or detriments of prosecuting youths as
adults, empirical studies of actual outcomes have provided mixed findings and have been limited by
problems of selection bias and jurisdictional differences in processing. The current research aims to
further inform this literature by capitalizing on a policy change in Connecticut that raised the age of
criminal responsibility from 16 to 17 on January 1, 2010, creating a natural experiment to assess the
recidivism differences for youths based upon the system of processing: juvenile versus adult court.
Findings from a 2-year follow-up reveal that 16-year-olds processed in juvenile courts had sub-
stantially reduced rates of recidivism with odds of rearrest that were between .462 and .630 less
than for 16-year-olds processed in adult courts dependent on model specification.
Keywords
juvenile justice, waiver/transfer, age of criminal responsibility, recidivism
The last quarter of the 20th century has come to be known as the “get-tough” era of juvenile justice
in the United States. A real increase in youth violence in American cities (Sickmund & Snyder,
1999) coupled with media portrayal of these youths as a new breed of “super predator” put enormous
pressure on policy makers and law enforcement officers to get tough on adolescent offenders (Butts
& Mitchell, 2000; Cook & Laub, 2002). The response was a national movement to change both the
purpose and the processing of the juvenile justice system. One of the most notable changes was a
proliferation in mechanisms to transfer youths to adult courts for what was intended to be a greater
punishment (Feld, 1984; Zimring, 1991). From 1992 to 1995 alone, 40 states and the District of
Columbia modified legislation for trying juveniles as adults (Griffin, Torbet, & Szymanski, 1998).
These laws lowered age thresholds for processing youths as adults—in some places to as young as 12
years of age—designated large categories of offenses for transfer, and shifted power in transfer
1 School of Criminal Justice, University at Albany, Albany, NY, USA
Corresponding Author:
Megan C. Kurlychek, School of Criminal Justice, University at Albany, 135 Western Ave., Albany, NY 12222, USA.
Email: mkurlychek@albany.edu

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Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice 16(3)
decisions from judges to legislatures (statutory exclusion laws) and prosecutors (direct file provi-
sions; Feld, 1999; Torbet et al., 1996).
The consequences of these laws on the number of juveniles being processed in adult courts were
substantial. Research indicates these laws resulted in significant increases in the number of youths
penetrating the adult criminal justice system (Feld, 2000; Torbet et al., 1996). Yet, these policies
were based on no sound empirical evidence that processing youths as adults would indeed increase
punishment or ultimately reduce youth violence. Rather, existing literature at the time would have
suggested the opposite—that youths processed in adult courts go on to become more criminal than
youths process in the more rehabilitative juvenile court (Bishop, Frazier, Lanza-Kaduce, & Winner,
1996; Fagan, 1991, 1996; Goodstein & Sontheimer, 1987; McNulty, 1996; Podkopacz, 1996; Win-
ner, Lanza-Kaduce, Bishop, & Frazier, 1997).
Interestingly, within the past two decades, many states have begun to reconsider their transfer
policies and are reexamining laws governing the criminality of youths. As predicted by Bernard and
Kurlychek (2010) in the “Cycle of Juvenile Justice,” the pendulum of juvenile justice seems to be
shifting away from the get-tough philosophy and again back to a more lenient treatment of youths.
Unfortunately, this shift back to leniency may be as empirically uninformed as was the get-tough
movement of the late 20th century.
Part of the reason for such uninformed policy choices is the tendency of legislators and govern-
ment officials to respond to perceived public sentiment over science. Another reason is the difficulty
in determining the true impact of processing youths in the juvenile justice system versus the adult
justice system. The difficulty emerges from the fact that most states maintain policies that select
only the most severe and chronic youths for transfer, which introduces problems of selection bias
into attempts to empirically evaluate such policies. Social scientists have employed various methods
to try to overcome these biases including comparing youths across state borders to capitalize on
different state laws/policies (Fagan, 1991, 1996) and using propensity score matching techniques to
try to match youths processed in the adult system to youths retained in the juvenile system who are
similar in important legal characteristics such as prior criminal history and seriousness of the offense
(Bishop, 2006). The current research further advances knowledge in this realm by capitalizing on a
natural experiment in which one state changed the age of maximum jurisdiction for the juvenile
justice system from 15 to 16 on January 1, 2010, thus impacting an entire population of youths
within one jurisdiction. That is, prior to 2010, all 16-year-olds in Connecticut had been processed in
adult court regardless of their criminal record. The “Raise the Age” legislation in Connecticut thus
provides a natural experimental setting in which we can assess within one jurisdiction (Connecticut)
the direct impact on recidivism of processing an entire population of 16-year-olds in the more
rehabilitative juvenile justice system (post January 1, 2010) as compared to processing 16-year-
olds in the more deterrence- and retributive-based adult criminal justice system (prior to January 1,
2010).1 To set the stage for the current study, we next discuss why one would expect different
outcomes based upon the system of processing.
Theoretical and Scientific Roots of Juvenile Processing
The Developing Juvenile
The original impetus for bifurcating the treatment of adults and juveniles under law was rooted in the
idea that youths are still developing and thus are highly susceptible to influences—both positive and
negative—and therefore need different treatment than adult offenders. To best help adolescents
displaying early signs of criminality develop into law-abiding and productive adults, it was reasoned
these vulnerable youths should be kept out of adult jails and prisons where they would learn to be
more criminal (Bernard & Kurlychek, 2010; Platt, 1977). Instead, the youths were to be provided

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Fowler and Kurlychek
265
more age-appropriate treatment and services to promote positive development. In other words,
where adult methods of crime control embodied rationales based in deterrence, retribution, and
incapacitation, the response to adolescent crime focused on rehabilitation (Bernard & Kurlychek,
2010; Fagan, 1991; Feld, 1987, 1999).
In addition to emphasizing rehabilitation over punishment, the juvenile justice system was
designed to keep youths away from any potential negative effects resulting from mixing youths
with older, more culpable adult offenders. This rationale, which is in line with differential asso-
ciation theory (Sutherland, 1942), was eventually formalized into national legislation in the
Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act of 1974 that mandates juveniles be kept out
of sight and sound contact with adult offenders and not be placed in adult jails or lockups.
However, the act does not require a standard national definition of who qualifies as a “juvenile.”
Thus, a 16-year-old in one state can be defined as a juvenile and the state required to abide by such
regulations, yet in another state, a 16-year-old can be defined as an adult and therefore legally not
afforded the same protections.
In addition to simply shielding youths from the negative influence of older more hardened
criminals, there is widespread belief that adult system processing is simply not appropriate for
youths based on their mental maturity and cognitive abilities. Psychologists have long postured that
adolescents have not achieved the same levels of cognition and reasoning as adults and, by nature,
are not as culpable for their acts (Hall, 1904; Keating, 1990; Klaczynski, 1993; Moshman, 1998;
Piaget, 1964; Steinberg & Cauffman, 1996). Thus, in addition to the argument for separation from
hardened adult criminals to avoid further criminalization, the juvenile justice system has historically
striven to provide both a process and a consequence more developmentally appropriate to the
cognitive and emotional maturity of youths.
More recently, this science has crossed the bounds from psychology to biology, garnering greater
empirical support. On the biological front, research on adolescent brain development finds that the
left frontal cortex of the brain does not fully develop until age 21 for females and age 24 for males
(Lenroot & Geidd, 2006). This portion of the brain is responsible for rational decision-making and
impulse control. In lieu of a fully developed left frontal cortex, research suggests adolescents’
decision-making and judgment are...