NCJ Number
146363
Journal
Crime and Delinquency Volume: 39 Issue: 2 Dated: (April 1993) Pages: 253-261
Date Published
1993
Length
9 pages
Annotation
An analysis of data on 103 juvenile offender arrests that occurred between September 1978 and December 1985 in Buffalo, New York, examined the use of legislative waiver, in which juvenile courts transfer jurisdiction over juveniles arrested for serious offenses to adult criminal court.
Abstract
The dependent variable used in this study was the prosecutor's decision to seek a grand jury indictment for juvenile offenders; independent variables included the offender's race, the marital status of the offender's parents, the extent of injuries inflicted on the victim by the offender, prior felony arrests, and media publicity at the time of the juvenile's arrest. The findings seemed to support the arguments of legislative waiver critics by demonstrating that juvenile offenders from single-parent households were more likely to face a grand jury indictment than offenders from dual-parent families. In support of legislative waiver, however, the analysis showed that all juveniles referred to the grand jury had been charged with serious offenses. 2 tables, 2 notes, and 14 references