Effectiveness of Juvenile Transfer to Adult Court

• Date: 01 August 2016
• Author: Megan C. Kurlychek
• Published date: 01 August 2016
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12240

EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION

JUVENILE TRANSFER AND

DETERRENCE

Effectiveness of Juvenile Transfer

to Adult Court

Implications from Current Research and Directions

for Future Study

Megan C. Kurlychek

University at Albany, SUNY

Our nation’s juvenile justice system was born out of a deeply held belief that

children are fundamentally different than adults and, as such, require a different

response than do adults for their wrongdoings (Bernard and Kurlychek, 2010).

As proposed almost 200 years ago by the Progressives (Getis, 2000; Pierce, 1969 [1869])

and as is being documented in medical (Giedd, 2004) and developmental (Steinberg and

Cauffman, 1996) science today, children areindeed inherently different than adults in ways

that specifically impact their ability to make decisions and to understand fully the future

consequences of their actions. These beliefs can be viewed in the early writings of Calwallader

Colden, the then mayor of New York City,who indicated that for youth, prison could be no

more than a “fruitful source of pauperism, a nursery of new vices and crimes” (Pierce, 1969

[1869]) as well as in more recent empirical literature that has clearly documented the ways

in which the adolescent brain and thinking differ from that of adults (Baird and Fugelsang,

2004; Giedd, 2004). Thus, a juvenile justice system based on education and treatment

rather than an adult criminal justice system focused on deterrence and punishment seems

the appropriate venue for their processing.

Yet,since the inception of the juvenile court, there has also been a seemingly contradic-

tory belief that some youth are not worthy of the benevolent nature of the juvenile justice

system. Hence, juvenile court judges have traditionally held the power to waive certain

youth from the juvenile to the adult justice system. With the Get Tough movement of the

1990s and its accompanying political rhetoric promoting juvenile delinquents as dangerous

Direct correspondence to Megan C. Kurlychek, School of Criminal Justice, University at Albany, 135 Western

Avenue, Albany, NY 12222 (e-mail: mkurlychek@albany.edu).

DOI:10.1111/1745-9133.12240 C2016American Society of Criminology 897

Criminology & Public Policy rVolume 15 rIssue 3