NCJ Number
173350
Journal
Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology Volume: 88 Issue: 1 Dated: Fall 1997 Pages: 15-67
Date Published
1997
Length
53 pages
Annotation
This paper addresses the claim that adolescent offenders are not fully responsible moral and legal agents, an assumption almost universally shared in Anglo-American criminal jurisprudence.
Abstract
If youths are to be adjudicated and punished like adults, it is therefore crucial to address the desert of youthful offenders. The focus on desert is not intended to gainsay the importance of other juvenile justice goals, such as prevention or reform. Depending on one's theory of punishment, such goals may be of great importance. But these other goals will be addressed only as they relate to this article's central question: the moral and ultimately legal responsibility of adolescent offenders. Part II of this paper offers a theory of responsibility that is rooted in current moral theories and actual practices of blaming and punishing. Part III explores whether juveniles meet the test of responsibility outlined in Part II. To determine which juveniles deserve mitigation, Part III reviews psychosocial and developmental variables that differentiate juveniles from adults. Part IV addresses the dispositional consequences that Parts II and III imply. The author concludes that neither common sense nor behavioral science data resolve the issue of juvenile responsibility. How we should respond to juvenile offenders is ultimately a moral judgment that must be derived from the best normative account of responsibility. 76 notes