NCJ Number
162233
Date Published
1996
Length
36 pages
Annotation
This study examined youth who were subject to automatic transfer to adult criminal court and who passed through the Cook County, Illinois, Juvenile Temporary Detention Center between November 1992 and March 1994.
Abstract
Over the 16-month period, 334 youths processed through the detention center were subject to automatic transfer. Nearly 40 percent were transferred to adult criminal court for a drug or weapon offense, and nearly half the cases transferred to adult court were dismissed or resulted in a probation sentence. Of 262 youths for whom racial data were available, 94.7 percent were black or Latino. Data demonstrated that automatic transfer provisions were inefficient since they failed to identify violent juvenile offenders, resulted in lengthy and costly pretrial detention, and unjustly impacted many youths who did not represent a threat to community safety. A historical review of juvenile transfer in Illinois and background information on the trial of young people in criminal courts are presented. The importance of revising automatic transfer provisions that fail to increase community safety and that impact primarily upon disadvantaged minority youth is stressed. Footnotes, tables, and figures