Youth in Adult Courts – An Overview of the Issue

1. Youth in Adult Courts – An Overview of the Issue Jeffrey Butts, Ph.D.Program on Youth JusticeURBAN INSTITUTE Coalition for Juvenile Justice Fall Training Conference Miami Beach, Florida November 7, 2002 Interactive Research Guide Also includes:

2. Youth in Adult Courts Summary • Despite two decades of research, we have not found a crime-reduction effect from criminal court transfer • Criminal court transfer is an inexact science • Only the most violent, chronic juvenile offenders get more severe & more certain punishment in adult court • The majority of youth moved to adult court get less punishment and fewer rehabilitative services • The deterrent value of transfer is not clear (at best)

3. Youth in Adult Courts 4 Topics: How are youth transferred? Why do we transfer them? What effect does it have? So what?

4. How Are Youth Transferred? Different terms used in state law • Waiver • Transfer • Direct file • Remand • Bind over • Certification • Exclusion

5. Juvenile judge decides Juvenile judge “decides” within legislative limits Prosecutor decides within legislative limits Legislature makes some cases automatic adults Juvenile & adult courts can combine juvenile & adult sanctions How Are Youth Transferred? Various mechanisms used by states • Judicial waiver • Presumptive/mandatory waiver • Prosecutor direct file or concurrent jurisdiction • Legislative exclusion (automatic waiver) • Blended sentencing (transfer, in effect)

6. How Are Youth Transferred? If the question is, how do offenders under age 18 get to adult court? There is one other mechanism… Excluding all 16- and 17-year-olds from juvenile court

7. Any case movement is a transfer CriminalCourt When the upper age of jurisdiction is lowered… • All 16 & 17-year-olds come under criminal court jurisdiction • No “Transfer” is necessary • CT, NC, NY (adult at 16) • GA, IL, LA, MA, MI, MO, NH, SC, TX, WI (adult at age 17) Age18 Age16 Juvenile Court How Are Youth Transferred?

8. How Many Youth Are Transferred? The decision whether to consider these 16- and 17-year-olds as “transfers” has a profound effect on the size of the transferred population

9. How Many Youth Are Transferred? Nobody really knows exactly… but we have various estimates All forms of judicial waiver Prosecutorial discretion All forms of legislative exclusion 8,000 NCJJ / OJJDP data 4 to 10,000? ( 2,700 in Florida ) 50,000 to 200,000?

10. Youth in Adult Courts 4 Topics: How are youth transferred? Why do we transfer them? What effect does it have? So what?

11. Why Are Youth Transferred? Most people would say: • Reduce crime • Hold youth “accountable” • Increase public safety

12. Why Are Youth Transferred? These are testable hypotheses Does transfer increase…? • Incapacitation • Specific deterrence • General deterrence

13. Implied Hypotheses More incapacitation Transferring young offenders to adult court means they will be incarcerated, and this reduces crime, by that person, at least for the time of imprisonment

14. Implied Hypotheses More specific deterrence Being transferred once makes an offender less likely to recidivate because he/she will not want to be transferred again

15. Implied Hypotheses More general deterrence Youth in general are less likely to commit crimes, because they see others being transferred and want to avoid it themselves

16. Questions Asked by Research Does transfer increase incapacitation? - Are transferred youth more likely to be incarcerated and for longer terms? Does transfer increase specific deterrence? - Are transferred youth less likely than non-transferred youth to re-offend? Does transfer increase general deterrence? - Are youth in general less likely to offend when/where transfer is used more?

17. Youth in Adult Courts 4 Topics: How are youth transferred? Why do we transfer them? What effect does it have? So what?

18. Specific Findings Incapacitation ? The chance of incarceration varies widely among transferred youth -- 20% to 80% Mixed findings Serious and violent offenders are more likely to be incarcerated if transferred, but other youth are not (e.g., Fagan, studied cases in NY vs. NJ) Some positive findings

19. Specific Findings Fagan: Who gets locked up more, longer? New Jersey Juvenile Courts New York Criminal Courts Robbery Cases(ages 16 & 17) Burglary Cases(ages 16 & 17)

20. Specific Findings Specific Deterrence Youth convicted in criminal court are not less likely to recidivate in general If there is a deterrent effect, studies have not identified it yet, and the conditions necessary to achieve it are not known Some studies suggest transfer increases rather than reduces post-release recidivism (e.g., Bishop, Frazier et al., transfers in Florida) All negative findings…

21. 49% Adult Juvenile 35% Specific Findings Lanza-Kaduce et al. : Who is re-arrested more, faster? Florida youth in juvenile justice system Recidivism? Case Matching Process Florida youth sentenced in adult court 475 Matched Pairs Same age, sex, race, offense, # priors, most serious prior

22. Adult Juvenile Specific Findings Lanza-Kaduce et al. : Who is re-arrested more, faster? Florida youth in juvenile justice system Recidivism? 49% Case Matching Process 35% 37% Florida youth sentenced in adult court 315 “Best-Matched” Pairs Same as before, but also matched on weapon use, victim injury, property loss/damage, gang involvement, prior escape attempts, drug problems, etc.

23. Specific Findings General Deterrence There is no association between the use of transfer and rates of juvenile crime Juvenile crime does not vary systematically between states according to the availability and use of transfer Before-and-after studies find that more transfer does not produce lower juvenile crime levels (e.g., Simon Singer, New York) All negative findings…

24. New York Transfer Provisions Expand 1978 1980 1985 1990 Research Question Did youth crime and violence go down as transfer expanded during the 1970s and 1980s? Specific Findings Singer: Do new transfer laws reduce crime? Answer: No • Some crime indicators went down in upstate New York, but up in NYC • Other indicators went down in NYC, but the same trends were seen in other large cities outside of New York

25. Overall Assessment Transfer is a failure based upon the three tests mentioned above: - Incapacitation - Specific deterrence - General deterrence Some increase in incapacitation, but only for the most serious and violent offenders No clear deterrent effect

26. Why limited incapacitation? Why no specific deterrence? Why no general deterrence? Why Does Transfer Fail? • The justice system is a “system,” nobody can guarantee a particular sentencing outcome (e.g., Snyder et al. study of expanded transfer in PA) • Other than the use and length of confinement, criminal & juvenile courts are not that different anymore. Why would we expect offenders to react so differently? • Like capital punishment, extreme sentences in the juvenile system are relatively rare and affect few people

27. So Why Do We Do It? Another purpose of punishment: Retribution • Powerful symbol of social condemnation • Widely embraced, even if no empirical connection to actual crime reduction

28. Youth in Adult Courts 4 Topics: How are youth transferred? Why do we transfer them? What effect does it have? So what?

29. So What? • Issues for Policymakers: • Is simple retribution a legitimate goal in dealing with young offenders? Does the public agree? • If transfer cannot guarantee incarceration, do community-based sentences in the adult system compare favorably with those in the juvenile system? • Could the growing use of transfer undermine what is left of the juvenile justice system?

30. So What? • How could transfer undermine juvenile justice? • Criminal court trial now seems like the only legitimate response to serious youth crime • The more we remove serious cases from juvenile court, the more it looks like “kiddie court” • Can a court for non-serious, non-violent, very young offenders be politically and fiscally viable for long? • If not, what system will we have for young offenders?

31. Jeffrey A. Butts Director, Program on Youth Justice URBAN INSTITUTE http://youth.urban.org http://jbutts.com CLICK Here to learn more about research on transfer

32. Transfer References Reference List Interactive Guide to the Research Literature Many studies about the impact of criminal court transfer have been published during the past two decades. Brief summaries and internet links are provided for some of the most influential and prominent of these studies. To begin, click on any portion of the reference list. Note: Web Links require a connection to the internet and a working browser. Some links may lead to PDF files requiring the Adobe Acrobat Reader. A - F G - M N - R S - Z Return to Presentation Guide to Research Other Links

33. Transfer References Reference List Summary Abeyratne, Senarath and Benita Sizemore (1999). Juveniles Waived to Criminal Courts in Ohio 1995-1997: Adjudication and Disposition. Columbus, OH: Ohio Department of Youth Services. Bishop, Donna M., Charles E. Frazier, Lonn Lanza-Kaduce and Lawrence Winner (1996). The transfer of juveniles to criminal court: Does it make a difference? Crime & Delinquency 42:171-191. Bortner, M. A. (1986). Traditional rhetoric, organization realities: Remand of juveniles to adult court. Crime & Delinquency 32:53-73. Brown, Jodi M., and Patrick A. Langan (1998). State Court Sentencing of Convicted Felons, 1994 (Section VI). Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics. Fagan, Jeffrey (1995). Separating the men from the boys: The comparative advantage of juvenile versus criminal court sanctions on recidivism among adolescent felony offenders, in Sourcebook on Serious, Violent, and Chronic Juvenile Offenders, eds. J. Howell et al., Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. and Fagan, Jeffrey (1996). The comparative advantage of juvenile versus criminal court sanctions on recidivism among adolescent felony offenders. Law & Policy 18:77-113. A - F G - M Summary N - R Summary S - Z Summary Return to Presentation Web Link Guide to Research Summary Other Links

34. Transfer References Reference List Summary Greenwood, Peter W., Albert J. Lipson, Allan Abrahamse & Franklin Zimring (1983). Youth Crime and Juvenile Justice in California: A Report to the Legislature (R-3016-CSA). Santa Monica, CA: Rand Corporation. Hamparian, Donna M., L. Estep, S. Muntean, R. Prestino, R. Swisher, P. Wallace and J.L. White (1982). Youth in Adult Courts: Between Two Worlds. Washington DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. Jensen, Eric L. and Linda K. Metsger (1994). A test of the deterrent effect of legislative waiver on violent juvenile crime. Crime and Delinquency 40:96-104. Lanza-Kaduce, Lonn, Charles E. Frazier, Jodi Lane, Donna M. Bishop (2002). Juvenile Transfer to Criminal Court Study: Final Report. Tallahassee, FL: Florida Department of Juvenile Justice. Levitt, Steven D. (1998). Juvenile crime and punishment. Journal of Political Economy 106(6):1156-1185. McNulty, Elizabeth W. (1996). The transfer of juvenile offenders to adult court: Panacea or problem? Law & Policy 18:61-75. A - F G - M Summary N - R S - Z Summary Return to Presentation Summary Web Link Guide to Research Summary Web Link Other Links Summary

35. Transfer References Reference List Podkopacz, Marcy R. and Barry C. Feld (1996). End of the line: An empirical study of judicial waiver. The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 86(2):449-492. Podkopacz, Marcy R. and Barry C. Feld (2001). The back-door to prison: Waiver reform, “blended sentencing,” and the law of unintended consequences. The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 91(4):997-1072. Poulos, Tammy Meredith, and Stan Orchowsky (1994). Serious juvenile offenders: Predicting the probability of transfer of criminal court. Crime & Delinquency 40:3-17. Risler, Edwin A., Tim Sweatman and Larry Nackerud (1998). Evaluating the Georgia legislative waiver's effectiveness in deterring juvenile crime. Research in Social Work Practice 8:657-667. Rudman, Cary, Eliot Hartstone, Jeffrey Fagan and Melinda Moore (1986). Violent youth in adult court: Process and punishment. Crime and Delinquency 32:75-96. Summary A - F G - M Summary N - R Summary S - Z Return to Presentation Summary Guide to Research Summary Other Links

36. Transfer References Reference List Singer, Simon (1996). Recriminalizing Delinquency: Violent Juvenile Crime and Juvenile Justice Reform. Cambridge, England:Cambridge University Press. and Singer, Simon I. and David McDowall (1988). Criminalizing delinquency: The deterrent effects of the New York juvenile offender law. Law & Society Review 22:521-535. Snyder, Howard, Melissa Sickmund, and Eileen Poe-Yamagata (2000). Juvenile Transfers to Criminal Court in the 1990's: Lessons Learned from Four Studies. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. Winner, Lawrence, Lonn Lanza-Kaduce, Donna M. Bishop and Charles E. Frazier (1997). The transfer of juveniles to criminal court: Reexamining recidivism over the long term. Crime and Delinquency 43:548-563. Summary A - F G - M N - R Summary S - Z Web Link Return to Presentation Summary Guide to Research Other Links

37. Transfer References Reference List Abeyratne and Sizemore (1999) Data indicate that from 1995 to 1997, 1,547 filings of bindover occurred in Ohio. The total number of cases included in the sample for this study, after eliminating multiple filings, was 1,330. Comparatively, the juveniles transferred to criminal court were a tiny fraction of the total juvenile court adjudications of each year. In addition to the number of juveniles transferred to criminal courts between 1995 and 1997, this report provides demographic profiles of waived juveniles and the waived juveniles convicted in criminal court. Data are also provided on the adjudicated offense, the adjudicated felony level, and the adjudicated offense type. The offense history of waived juveniles is also included, along with county of adjudication, disposition, convicted offense, convicted felony level, and convicted offense type. Sentences received are cited, and data are presented on plea bargains or indictments for additional/different offenses and felony levels. The youths waived to criminal court in Ohio were predominantly minorities and male. Three-fourths of adjudicated offenses belonged to Part One Crimes under Uniform Crime Reporting classification; more than one-half of the youths waived committed violent crimes. Ninety-five percent of the waived youths were convicted in the criminal court. Most (89.6 percent) were sentenced to imprisonment. A - F NCJRS Abstract G - M N - R S - Z Return to Presentation Guide to Research Other Links

38. Transfer References Reference List Bishop et al. (1996); Winner et al. (1997) Tracked recidivism for up to 7 years among nearly 3,000 Florida youth who were either retained in juvenile court or transferred to criminal court (largely by prosecutors). Samples were matched on on seven criteria: most serious offense; number of counts in current case; number of prior referrals to juvenile court; most serious prior offense; age; gender; and, race. Results suggested that transfer was "more likely to aggravate recidivism than to stem it" (Winner et al., 1997: 558-559). Transferred and retained youth had similar patterns of re-offending, although some property offenders convicted in criminal court had a lower rate of re-arrest than their counterparts retained in juvenile court. Transferred youth generally re-offended more quickly than did youth retained in the juvenile justice system, but the prevalence of recidivism for retained youth eventually caught up to the level of transferred youth. Among the youth that recidivated, transferred youth tended to re-offend more often and more quickly. A - F G - M N - R S - Z Return to Presentation Guide to Research Other Links

39. Transfer References Reference List • Brown and Langan (1998) • Excerpts from the report: • In 1994 an estimated 872,000 adults were convicted of a felony in State courts. Of them, approximately 21,000 were persons under age 18. • A larger percentage of those under 18 (40%) than of those 18 or over (19%) had a violent crime as their conviction offense. • Among defendants convicted of aggravated assaults, 72% of those under age 18 received a prison sentence, compared to 49% of those 18 or older. • Among defendants sentenced to prison, those under age 18 had about the same length of sentence as older defendants for property and drug crimes. However, for weapons and violent offenses, defendants under age 18 received longer sentences on average than those age 18 or older. • For robbery, defendants under age 18 received an average prison sentence of about 10 years--15 months longer than the average sentence of older defendants. A - F G - M N - R S - Z Return to Presentation Guide to Research Other Links

40. Transfer References Reference List • Bortner (1986) • 1980 and 1981 data on 214 youth transferred to criminal court in an unnamed Western State • 96% of transferred youth were convicted or plead guilty • 63% received probation as the primary sanction • 32% resulted in some jail or prison time • Published Abstract: “There is little evidence to suggest that those juveniles remanded are singularly dangerous or intractable, nor is there evidence to suggest that their remand enhances public safety. In contrast to traditional rhetoric, the present analysis suggests that organizational and political factors account for the high rate of remand. In evidencing a willingness to relinquish jurisdiction over a small percentage of its clientele, and by portraying these juveniles as the most intractable and the greatest threat to public safety, the juvenile system not only creates an effective symbolic gesture regarding protection of the public but it also advances its territorial interests in maintaining jurisdiction over the vast majority of juveniles and deflecting more encompassing criticisms of the entire system.” A - F G - M N - R S - Z Return to Presentation Guide to Research Other Links

41. Transfer References Reference List Fagan (1995 & 1996) Collected data on 2 groups of offenders: 1) youth retained in northern New Jersey's juvenile court system, and 2) similar youth excluded from southeastern New York's juvenile courts due to upper age of juvenile court jurisdiction (age 15 in NY; age 17 in NJ) and some legislative exclusions. All offenders were age 15 or 16 and charged with burglary or robbery. Samples selected at random from 2 NJ counties and 2 NY counties, then matched on legal and social measures. Robbery offenders in criminal court were found guilty more often (57%) than their counterparts in juvenile court (46%). Of youth found guilty of robbery, those in criminal court were more likely to be incarcerated (46% vs. 18%). Youth charged with burglary in criminal court were no more likely to be convicted or incarcerated than the matched sample of youth charged in juvenile court. Youth charged with robbery who were convicted (or plead guilty) in adult court re-offended more quickly and more frequently than comparable youth adjudicated in juvenile court. Successful periods of time until re-arrest were 50 percent longer for robbery offenders sentenced in juvenile court than for robbery offenders sentenced in criminal court -- 4 of 5 burglars from both courts were re-arrested during the follow-up period. No significant differences were found in time to re-arrest for convicted or adjudicated burglars. A - F G - M N - R S - Z Return to Presentation Guide to Research Other Links

42. Transfer References Reference List Greenwood, Lipson, Abrahamse & Zimring (1983) Compared juvenile and adult court outcomes in three large California jurisdictions for a sample of cases involving juveniles and young adults (ages 16-21) charged with armed robbery or residential burglary. Adult court sentences were more severe on average, but the difference was partly due to the juvenile court's differentiated handling of cases. Aggravating factors (prior offenses or prior violent offenses) received more severe responses in juvenile court. Aggravating factors had less effect on the severity of criminal court sentences, which were more likely to be based strictly on the charges involved. Among Los Angeles armed robbery cases, for example, juvenile court offenders with two or more aggravating factors were nearly 3 times as likely to be sentenced to incarceration as those with no aggravating factors. The difference was much smaller in the criminal court. A - F G - M N - R S - Z Return to Presentation Guide to Research Percent of youthful offenders sentenced to terms of incarceration Number of Aggravating Factors Young Adults Juveniles Other Links None 41% 23% One 43% 38% Two or More 53% 63%

43. Transfer References Reference List • Hamparian et al. (1982) • 1978 data from a multi-state study and literature review • Estimated 12,600 juvenile cases per year sent to criminal court • More than two-thirds were judicial waivers; only 10% automatically excluded by state law • 91% percent of juveniles tried in criminal court were convicted • More than half the criminal convictions resulted in probation, fines, or other non-incarcerative sanctions • 46% of judicial transfers and 39% of prosecutor direct files ended in sentences that involved any term of incarceration A - F G - M N - R S - Z Return to Presentation Guide to Research Other Links

44. Transfer References Reference List Jensen & Metsger (1994) Compared changes in juvenile violence in Idaho, which had recently expanded its transfer laws, to crime in Montana and Wyoming, which had not changed their transfer laws. Evaluated the deterrent effect of an expanded transfer statute passed by Idaho in 1981. The law required criminal-court transfer for juveniles charged with violent offenses (e.g., murder, attempted murder, robbery, forcible rape). The study tracked arrest rates five years before and five years after the enactment of the new law, but found no evidence of a deterrent effect. The rates of violent crime in Montana and Wyoming were similar to those of Idaho. The analysis failed to find a significant difference in rates of youth violence following the implementation of expanded transfer provisions. A - F G - M N - R S - Z Return to Presentation Guide to Research Other Links

45. Transfer References Reference List Lanza-Kaduce et al. (2002) Study measured felony recidivism among young offenders in Florida who were either retained in juvenile court and sanctioned in the juvenile justice system or transferred to adult court and received criminal sentences. Like their previous studies using Florida data, the researchers created equivalent samples of offenders, matching 475 pairs of offenders on gender, age, race, offense, number of charges, previous referrals, and most serious prior referral offense. Unlike their previous work, they used more detailed data to create 315 “best-matched” pairs using a wide range of factors obtained through direct reviews of agency case files, including case complexity, weapon use, victim loss/injury, role of co-defendants, previous escape charges and defendant failures to appear, and other variables such as school functioning, grade levels, and drug and alcohol use and addiction. Each pair was tracked for equivalent time periods to detect subsequent felonies after the defendant had reached age 18. A - F G - M N - R S - Z Return to Presentation Guide to Research Percentage of felony recidivism among matched pairs of of offenders Other Links

46. Transfer References Reference List Levitt (1998) Analyzed the differences between states in how severely they punish criminal offending (judged by the use of incarceration) and the extent to which arrest rates change after youth reach the age of criminal responsibility. Found that in states where juveniles are punished similarly to adults, arrest rates do not drop markedly at the age of legal adulthood. Where states punish adults more than juveniles, however, violent crime arrests drop 25 percent in the first year after individuals are treated as adults in the courts. This was interpreted as possible support for a general deterrent effect from expanded use of criminal court transfer. The study examined only aggregate arrest rates, however, and did not track the link between severity of punishment and criminal behavior by individual youth. In addition, the data used for the study were from 1978 to 1993, just before the sudden drop in violent crime among both adults and juveniles. The findings do not address whether the empirical relationship reported by Levitt survived the turnaround in crime rates during the mid- to late-1990s. A - F G - M N - R S - Z Return to Presentation Guide to Research Other Links

47. Transfer References Reference List • McNulty (1996) • 92% of a sample of transferred cases were convicted • 43% of those transferred cases received a sentence involving incarceration • 49% of transferred cases resulted in probation as the most serious sanction A - F G - M N - R S - Z Return to Presentation Guide to Research Other Links

48. Transfer References Reference List Podkopacz and Feld (1996) Followed transferred and non-transferred youthful offenders in Hennepin County, Minnesota. Transferred youth were more likely to re-offend (58 percent versus 42 percent over 24 months at large). Youth convicted in criminal court were more likely to be sentenced to confinement (85%) than were youth handled in juvenile court (63%), even after controlling for the seriousness of offenses. Youth convicted of offenses carrying presumptive terms of incarceration (e.g., violent offenses), received much longer sentences from the criminal court (roughly 4 years) than from juvenile court (approximately 9 months). The relationship reversed, however, for youth convicted of non-presumptive offenses (usually property). Youth adjudicated for these offenses in juvenile court were sentenced to longer periods of incarceration (about 6 months) than were youth convicted in criminal court (about 4.5 months). A - F G - M N - R S - Z Return to Presentation Guide to Research Other Links

49. Transfer References Reference List • Podkopacz and Feld (2001) • Reviewed case processing and trial outcomes for young offenders in Hennepin County, Minnesota before and after the enactment of Minnesota’s “blended sentencing” statute in 1995. The new law had several impacts on the handling of young offenders: • The number of youth eligible for adult sanctions increased dramatically. • The number of youth actually certified for adult court trial, however, was relatively unchanged compared to the volume of certifications before 1995. • The biggest increase was in the number of youth deemed inappropriate for adult-court certification directly, but appropriate for Extended Jurisdiction Juvenile status (or, EJJ). • The EJJ provision allowed courts to handle youth in juvenile court (with adult-like procedural guarantees) and then impose a lengthy adult sentence, which would be stayed pending a determination of the youth’s “amenability” to sanctioning in the juvenile system. Revocation of EJJ status for these youth, according to the authors, placed youth at risk of entering the adult system through the “back door.” • The change in the law made the juvenile sanctioning process more complex and more contentious, and the youth who were at risk of adult sanctioning for the first time were disproportionately minority and female. A - F G - M N - R S - Z Return to Presentation Guide to Research Other Links

50. Transfer References Reference List Poulos and Orchowsky (1994) Under the Virginia law, a child of 15 or older who is charged with a felony can be transferred to criminal court. This study sought to identify the legal and extralegal factors that make it more likely that a juvenile offender will be transferred to criminal court. This was accomplished by comparing a sample of 364 serious juvenile offenders who were transferred and convicted in criminal court with 363 offenders who were eligible for transfer but were instead incarcerated within the juvenile justice system in a juvenile learning center. Commitment to a learning center is the most severe sanction available to Virginia's juvenile courts, short of transfer. Variables examined were put into five categories: demographic, current offense, victim-related, drug/alcohol abuse treatment and prior criminal or delinquency record. Thirteen of the factors considered were found to be statistically significant in predicting the outcome of a transfer determination. Among these are the current offense, prior record and commitment history and the age of the offender. A - F NCJRS Abstract G - M N - R S - Z Return to Presentation Guide to Research Other Links