NCJ Number
181604
Journal
Federal Probation Volume: 63 Issue: 2 Dated: December 1999 Pages: 52-57
Editor(s)
Ellen W. Fielding
Date Published
1999
Length
6 pages
Annotation
The authors present developmental perspective on serious juvenile crime that encompasses legally relevant competencies, capacities, and capabilities.
Abstract
Although they indirectly address whether considerations of public safety, deterrence, and retribution are so compelling that they outweigh any claims made on the basis of observed differences between adolescents and adults, a direct examination of this issue is not squarely within the realm of developmental psychology. Rather, developmental psychology broadly concerns the scientific study of changes in physical, intellectual, emotional, and social development over the life cycle. The developmental perspective on serious juvenile crime focuses on certain features of adolescence, such as rapid changes that occur between 12 and 17 years of age; family, peer, and school influences during adolescence; and the formative nature of adolescence during which many developmental trajectories become firmly established and increasingly difficult to change. The developmental perspective is discussed in terms of adjudicating adolescents as adults. Research and theory on adjudicative competence, culpability, and amenability are reviewed. The authors conclude that the developmental perspective can inform but cannot answer the transfer debate. 11 references