Estimating the Crime Effects of Raising the Age of Majority

• Date: 01 February 2017
• Published date: 01 February 2017
• Author: Aaron Chalfin,Charles E. Loeffler
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12268

RESEARCH ARTICLE

RAISING THE AGE OF MAJORITY

Estimating the Crime Effects of Raising

the Age of Majority

Evidence from Connecticut

Charles E. Loeer

University of Pennsylvania

Aaron Chaln

University of Pennsylvania

Research Summary

The results of recent empirical research have shown that juveniles do not achieve

complete psychosocial maturity until postadolescence and that processing juveniles as

adults in the criminal justice system can be associated with elevated rates of criminal

recidivism. In response to these as well as other concerns, several states have recently

raised their legal ages of majority in the hopes of reducing juvenile offending rates.

Connecticut enacted one such law change when it raised its age of majority from 16 to

17 in 2010 and then from 17 to 18 in 2012 for all but the most serious offenses. The

effect of Connecticut’s policy change on juvenile crime is examined in this study. To

discern between changes in juvenile offending and changes in the propensity of police to

arrest youthful offenders in the aftermath of a law change, we use two methodological

approaches. Synthetic control methods are used to generate triple-differences estimates

of the effect of Connecticut’s policy change on juvenile arrests and overall crime rates

by using a weighted average of other U.S. states as a natural comparison group. Next,

by analyzing National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) data for a subset

of Connecticut’s local jurisdictions, we examine changes in age-specific juvenile arrests

and changes in age-specific juvenile offending. The resulting evidence suggests that no

We thank Kate Evans, Donna DiNello, and their colleagues in the NIBRS unit of the Connecticut Department of

Public Safety for their assistance in obtaining and interpreting Connecticut’s NIBRS data. Direct

correspondence to Charles Loeffler, Department of Criminology, University of Pennsylvania, 483 McNeil

Building, 3718 Locust Walk, Philadelphia, PA 19104-6286 (e-mail: cloef@sas.upenn.edu).

DOI:10.1111/1745-9133.12268 C2017 American Society of Criminology 45

Criminology & Public Policy rVolume 16 rIssue 1

Research Article Raising the Age of Majority

discernable change in juvenile offending occurred. In addition, evidence exists that in

some Connecticut jurisdictions, officer, rather than juvenile,behavior was impacted by

this law change.

Policy Implications

Although raise-the-age policies may remain desirable for other policy reasons,no robust

evidence of their effects on crime is yet available. Given the absence of such evidence of

crime effects, policy makers interested in raise-the-age policies for their crime-reduction

benefits might consider focusing on other juvenile justice policy initiatives with demon-

strated crime-reduction benefits. Nevertheless, policy makers interested in these policies

for other policy reasons can rest assured that there is no evidence that these policies

exacerbate juvenile crime. The results of this study also suggest that the effects of “raise-

the-age” policies on crime will be difficult to separate from recent declining trends in

juvenile crime and arrests as well as from changes in police arrest decision making.

Keywords

raise the age, Connecticut, crime, age of majority, evaluation

According to the results from recent research, juveniles, particularly males, do not

reach psychosocial maturity until well into their 20s (Cauffman, 2012; Steinberg

and Cauffman, 1996). This finding has implications for the culpability and the

reformability of juvenile offenders, particularly older juvenile offenders, who are often tried

as adults and sent to adult prisons. If juveniles do not fully mature until postadolescence,

scholars have argued, then juveniles who offend before reaching this threshold should not

be subject to the adult criminal justice system with its greater emphasis on punishment

rather than on rehabilitation (Farrington, Loeber,and Howell, 2012; NationalAcademy of

Sciences, 2013). In light of these arguments, over the last decade, several states with sub-18

ages of majority have actively considered expanding the jurisdiction of their juvenile courts

by increasing the maximum jurisdictional age to 18 for all but the most serious criminal

offenses (Brown, 2012). Several states, including Illinois, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Mis-

sissippi, and New Hampshire, have already done so in whole or in part. Proponents of

these changes argue that raising the age of majority, and thus, expanding the juvenile justice

system, will reduce crime by increasing affected juveniles’ access to the moreabundant treat-

ment opportunities available in the juvenile justice system and by limiting their exposure to

the more harmful aspects of the adult justice system. They further argue that the decrease in

crime will, on balance, produce cost savings in the long run that will offset the higher costs

of processing juvenile arrestees as juveniles (Henrichson and Levshin, 2011).1Opponents

1. In North Carolina, the additional cost of processing an individual as a juvenile rather than as an adult has

been estimated to be as follows: arrest ($249), detention ($181.90), court and adjudication costs

($213–$1,230), counselors ($175), and programming ($1,400–$15,000) (Henrichson and Levshin, 2011).

46 Criminology & Public Policy