NCJ Number
205520
Date Published
November 2003
Length
108 pages
Annotation
This report on arrest and court activity for juveniles arrested for serious offenses and processed in adult court in New York City covers January through December 2001.
Abstract
New York State's Juvenile Offender Law (JO), enacted as part of the Omnibus Crime Control Bill of 1978, mandates that when a 14- or 15-year-old juvenile is arrested for a specified serious offense (17 offenses are indicated), the case is to be filed directly in the adult court. The report is divided into seven sections that provide data and information on arrest, criminal court arraignment, criminal court disposition, supreme court first appearance, supreme court disposition, supreme court sentence, and failure-to-appear rates. There were 1,686 arrests for JO offenses from January 1, 2001, through December 31, 2001. Fewer than 3 of every 10 of these arrests were filed in adult court; 72 percent of the cases were declined for prosecution or were transferred to family court before arraignment. Among the cases disposed in criminal court during the reporting period, nearly 6 of every 10 were not transferred to supreme court. Among those cases disposed in supreme court, a conviction was the most likely outcome (88 percent). The proportion of cases in which defendants were released was greater at all decision points after criminal court arraignment. For the subsequent case-processing points, this appears to be a function of a decrease in the overall number of cases processed at each point, as well as an increase in the number of defendants making bail. Extensive figures and tables