The Effects Of Adjudicating And Sentencing Juveniles As Adults

• Author: Richard E. Redding
• Published date: 01 April 2003
• Date: 01 April 2003
• DOI: 10.1177/1541204002250875
• Subject Matter: Article

10.1177/1541204002250875
ARTICLE
Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice
Redding / EFFECTS OF TRYING JUVENILES AS ADULTS
THE EFFECTS OF ADJUDICATING AND
SENTENCING JUVENILES AS ADULTS
Research and Policy Implications
Richard E. Redding
Villanova University School of Law and Drexel University
Across the nation, serious and chronic juvenile offenders are increasingly being tried as
adults in criminal court and incarcerated in adult correctional facilities. This trend
raises important questions for policy makers. To what extent do trials in criminal courts
and incarceration in adult prisons promote or inhibit community protection and the
accountability and rehabilitation of juvenile offenders? This article discusses the legal
consequences of adjudication in criminal court and offers a comprehensive review of
research findings on the deterrent effects of transfer laws, conviction and sentencing
patterns and recidivism rates in juvenile versus criminal courts, and conditions and
programming in juvenile versus adult correctional facilities. The implications of these
research findings for juvenile justice policies on adjudicating and sentencing juveniles
as adults and directions for future research are discussed.
Keywords: juvenile offenders; transfer; criminal court; sentencing; incarceration
In response to public concern about juvenile crime (see Snyder & Sickmund, 1999;
Zimring, 1998), the federal government and state legislatures have revised state laws to
make it easier to transfer, waive, refer, remand, or certify (hereinafter transfer) juvenile
offenders from the juvenile court to the criminal court for trial and sentencing.1 Transfer
laws are designed to enhance community protection by deterring juveniles from committing
serious crimes and by providing greater certainty of an incarceration period of adequate
length through trial and sentencing in the criminal court. Transfer laws also reflect the view
that some juveniles who commit serious crimes are fully culpable and deserving of adult
punishment (Redding, 1997). Most transferred juveniles are 17-year-old African American
males who have committed offenses against persons (Snyder & Sickmund, 1999), with an
average prison sentence length of about 8 years for violent offenses (Strom, 2000).
Legislative changes in transfer laws have included lowering the minimum age for
transfer, expanding the list of crimes for which transfer is an option, vesting greater
discretion in prosecutors, and eliminating some of the factors judges must consider before
transferring youth (Sickmund, 1994; Torbet et al., 1996; Torbet & Syzmanski, 1998). For
example, many states no longer require that juveniles first be found “unamenable to
treatment” (i.e., not rehabilitatable) in the juvenile system before they can be transferred to
Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice, Vol. 1 No. 2, April 2003 128-155
DOI: 10.1177/1541204002250875
© 2003 Sage Publications
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criminal court. Virtually all states have set the minimum age for transfer at 14 or younger.
Many states now require transfer for juveniles who commit violent felonies such as murder,
rape, or armed robbery, and several states now allow children of any age to be transferred
for most crimes. In addition, some states have lowered the juvenile court’s upper age of
jurisdiction, which is now 15 in Connecticut, New York, and North Carolina and 16 in at
least 10 other states (Bishop, 2000).
Taken together, these legislative reforms have produced substantial increases in the
number of youth convicted of felonies in criminal courts (Bishop, 2000) and incarcerated in
adult facilities (Snyder & Sickmund, 1999). Nationwide, the number of juveniles being
transferred has increased substantially over the past two decades (from 7,300 in 1986 to
12,300 in 1994) (Bishop, 2000; Sickmund, Snyder, & Poe-Yamagata, 1997), in part due to
changes in state laws (Sickmund et al., 1997), although it remains the case that only 1% to
2% of all cases formally processed in the juvenile court are transferred (Bishop & Frazier,
2000). The increase is partly attributable to greater willingness of juvenile court judges to
transfer cases and a decline in treatment options available in the juvenile system (Howell,
1996).
There has been a 60% increase (from 24,000 in 1994 to 38,000 in 1996) in the number
of juveniles younger than age 18 convicted of felonies in criminal courts (Bishop, 2000).
The number of juveniles incarcerated in adult facilities pending trial and after trial is also
increasing (Snyder & Sickmund, 1999). The number of juveniles held in adult jails (about
2% of the jail population) pending trial rose 366% between 1983 and 1998, from 1,700 to
8,000 (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 1999; Gilliard, 1999). (For instance, in Idaho, a recently
enacted statute requires that unless a judge orders otherwise, juveniles must be detained in
adult facilities if they are to be tried as adults [Merlo, Benekos, & Cook, 1997]). In 1997,
7,400 juveniles younger than age 18 were admitted to state prisons, representing about 2%
of new admissions (Strom, 2000).
Transfer can have “tremendous consequences for the juvenile” (Kent v. United States,
1966, p. 554), including lengthy incarceration, abuse in adult prison, and (although
extremely rare) execution for capital offenses. “Waiver to the adult court is the single most
serious act the juvenile court can perform . . . because once waiver of jurisdiction occurs, the
child loses all protective and rehabilitative possibilities available” (State v. R.G.D., 1987,
p. 835). (In some states, however, the criminal court trying a juvenile can impose either an
adult or a juvenile sentence.) A felony conviction of a juvenile in criminal court generally
results in the loss of a number of rights and privileges and the possibility of adult sanctions,
as shown in Table 1. Unfortunately, these consequences may increase recidivism because
they limit the extent to which the offender can be successfully reintegrated into community
life and obtain employment and other opportunities.
This article reviews research findings on the effects of transfer laws on juvenile crime,
sentencing patterns, recidivism rates in juvenile versus criminal courts and conditions in
juvenile versus adult correctional facilities. The extant research indicates that although it is
unclear whether transfer laws deter juvenile crime in the long run, criminal court
adjudication of juveniles and incarceration of juveniles in adult prisons appear to offer few
advantages and pose many potential disadvantages. Criminal adjudication and incarceration
appear to retard rather than enhance community protection over time and diminish rather than
enhance juvenile offenders’ accountability and development of competencies.

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Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice
TABLE 1
Typical Collateral Legal Consequences of a Criminal Court Felony Conviction
Because of variation across states, not all of the collateral consequences listed will apply in all cases, but they
are representative of the typical adverse consequences resulting from a criminal felony conviction.
1. The offender loses the right to vote, the right to serve in the military (if convicted of two felonies or a
felony and two misdemeanors), and the right to own a firearm.
2. The conviction is a matter of public record and must be reported on employment applications.
3. The offender is generally subject to criminal court jurisdiction for all subsequent offenses committed as a
juvenile, and the conviction is generally considered in sentencing for future criminal convictions and in
sentencing under “three strikes” laws.
4. The offender may receive an adult sentence and may be incarcerated in adult prison.
5. Offenders age 16 or older at the time of the offense may be subject to the death penalty for capital
offenses.
6. Offenders convicted of a sex offense are listed in state sex offender registries.
Juveniles tried as adults typically lose the civil rights listed here except in states providing that, if the criminal
court imposes a juvenile disposition, the finding of guilt is not a criminal conviction but is considered an
adjudication of delinquency and that none of the “civil disabilities ordinarily resulting from a conviction”
operate. In these states, the criminal court effectively functions as the juvenile court when it exercises its
discretion to impose a juvenile sentence.
Do Transfer Laws Deter Serious Juvenile Crime?
Research on whether transfer laws as implemented serve their intended goal of
deterring juvenile crime has produced conflicting findings. On the one hand, two well-
designed studies found that automatic transfer laws have no deterrent effect on juvenile
crime in the relative short term (up to 6 years after such laws were enacted). Jensen and
Metsger (1994) conducted a time-series analysis for 5 years before and after the 1981 Idaho
automatic transfer statute was passed. They found a 13% increase in arrest rates for violent
juvenile crime following the implementation of the automatic transfer law, whereas arrest
rates for violent juvenile crime decreased in the neighboring states of Montana and
Wyoming, which are demographically similar to Idaho but do not have automatic transfer
laws. An analysis in New York (Singer, 1996; Singer & McDowall, 1988) conducted for a
period of 4 years before and 6 years after the law was implemented found no deterrent effect
of a state law that lowered the age for criminal court jurisdiction (thereby...