Pathways to Adult Court: Does the Road Traveled Impact the Final Destination?
| Published date | 01 December 2010 |
| Author | Megan C. Kurlychek |
| DOI | 10.3818/JRP.12.2.2010.1 |
| Date | 01 December 2010 |
| Subject Matter | Focus on Juvenile Justice |
*
Megan C. Kurlychek
University at Albany, SUNY
* Abstract
The current study examines whether the process by which a juvenile reaches adult court
influences later sentencing outcomes. Previous research has found that juveniles who
were judicially waived to adult court faced a penalty at sentencing and suggested that this
bias may be due to either 1) increased assessments of risk based on the offender’s young
age, or 2) a stigmatization of the offender by the transfer process itself. By examining a
population of 16- and 17-year-old felony defendants in a state that automatically defines
such youth as adults, this research directly tested these notions. Findings revealed that in
this state, 16- and 17-year-old defendants actually received more lenient sentences than
a matched sample of 18- and 19-year-old offenders, which is contrary to what would
be expected if the previously found juvenile penalty was related to assessments of risk
based on age. Moreover, in a second analysis comparing judicially waived youth (ages
13 to 15) in this same state to the 16- and 17-year-old defendants, it was found that the
waived youth received significantly more severe sentences. The results are interpreted as
support for the stigmatization hypothesis, suggesting that the process by which a youth
reaches adult court does have significant meaning for later court outcomes.
This article is part of a special section in this issue of JRP that focuses on juvenile justice.
The section was guest-edited by Nancy Rodriguez of Arizona State University and Phillip
Stevenson of the Arizona Criminal Justice Commission.
JUSTICE RESEARCH AND POLICY, Vol. 12, No. 2, 2010
© 2010 Justice Research and Statistics Association
Fo c u s o n Ju v e n i l e Ju s t i c e
P
During the late 1980s and early 1990s, the inception of the “get tough” era altered
the face of juvenile justice across the nation. Since this time, a body of literature has
emerged that examines the consequences of these sweeping policy changes. Perhaps
no issue has received greater attention then the invention of ever-evolving pathways
by which juvenile offenders could reach, and be processed in, adult criminal courts.
Attention to this issue is indeed warranted based on the vast distinctions between
juvenile and adult justice in our nation and the potential lifelong consequences for
affected youth.
While early studies focused on potential bias in the waiver or transfer decision
itself (e.g., the influence of race and gender), later research has begun to explore
potential biases in later justice system outcomes. For example, emerging research
in this realm has suggested that juveniles waived or otherwise transferred to
adult court actually suffer a “juvenile penalty” at the sentencing stage, subjecting
these youth to harsher outcomes than even similar 18- and 19-year-old offenders
(Kurlychek & Johnson, 2004, 2010; Steiner, 2009). The authors of this research
provide various plausible ex post facto hypotheses to explain this effect, including
proposed judicial attributions of dangerousness and risk based on the offenders’
young age, and/or a stigmatization sequence in which the decisions of earlier court
actors send a subterranean message to the sentencing judge that these youth are
indeed “atypical” or perhaps even “unsalvageable.” Yet, to date, no existing study
has assessed the viability of these somewhat diverse causal patterns that may lead
to the observed bias at sentencing.
The current study is designed to build upon and expand this earlier literature
by empirically testing the validity of these proposed causal mechanisms. In specific,
this study is designed to test the somewhat competing notions that increased sen-
tences meted out to transferred juveniles are attributable to either 1) the perceived
risk such offenders pose to society due to their young age and potential for offend-
ing in future years, or rather 2) a stigma that may be attached to the youth through
the transfer process and his/her atypical appearance in an adult court setting. To do
so, the current study will examine data from the state of North Carolina, in which
all 16- and 17-year-olds are simply defined by statute as adults—thus making such
youth “typical” rather than “atypical” in the adult court. In addition, this state
also maintains judicial waiver procedures for youth below the age of 16, allowing
for an additional test of the proposed juvenile penalty for these even younger juve-
niles who are “atypical” in the adult court. The framework for the current study is
drawn from the literatures on both juvenile transfers to adult court and theories of
adult court sentencing. To fully understand the social ramifications of the process-
ing of juveniles in adult court, however, it is important to begin with an understand-
ing of how and why we maintain a separate system of justice for juveniles.
* Literature Review
Differential Treatment for Youthful Offenders: The Historical Precedent
Throughout history there is evidence of differential treatment being offered to
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