Florida Experiment: An Analysis of the Impact of Granting Prosecutors Discretion to Try Juveniles as Adults

• NCJ Number: 181951
• Author(s): Vincent Schiraldi; Jason Ziedenberg
• Date Published: 1999
• Length: 13 pages
• Sale Source: Justice Policy Institute
• Publication Format: Document
• Publication Type: Program/Project Evaluation
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

Florida is one of 15 States that allow prosecutors, not judges, to decide whether children arrested for crimes ranging from shoplifting to robbery should be dealt with in the juvenile justice system or the adult criminal justice system.

Abstract

While 43 States have changed their laws to make it easier for judges to send children to the adult criminal justice system since 1993, Florida leads the nation in using prosecutors to make the decision to try children as adults. In 1995 alone, Florida prosecutors sent 7,000 juvenile cases to adult court, nearly matching the number of cases judges sent to the adult criminal justice system nationwide that year. The most striking feature of Florida's transferred youth population profile is the extent to which minority youth are overrepresented in the ranks of youth being referred to adult court. While some have suggested large numbers of children are being held in adult facilities across the State, it is not clear that youth going to adult court via prosecutorial waiver are serving long sentences. Further, while it might be expected that prosecutorial waiver would reduce the number of youths being sent to Florida's juvenile justice system, the opposite has been true. Between 1993 and 1998, the number of annual commitments to the juvenile justice system increased by 85 percent, despite the liberal use of waiver to adult court. In terms of the crime control impact of waiver to adult court, one study shows that youth transferred to adult court are about 33 percent more likely to re-offend than youth sent to the juvenile justice system. Another study indicates that young people believe the juvenile justice system is more rehabilitative than the adult criminal justice system. In addition, despite having prosecutorial waiver on the books since 1981, Florida has the second highest overall violent crime rate in the country, and Florida's violent juvenile crime rate is 48 percent higher than the national average. Of additional note, children sent to adult care face greater threats to their life. The authors conclude that the Florida system of prosecutorial waiver is not effective in controlling juvenile crime. 29 endnotes and 3 figures