NCJ Number
224352
Journal
Justice Quarterly Volume: 25 Issue: 3 Dated: September 2008 Pages: 496-522
Date Published
September 2008
Length
27 pages
Annotation
This paper analyzes the frequency and content of judicial censure and moral communication in the sentencing of youth sex offenders.
Abstract
The work found that in most but not all cases, the judges censured the offending as both a moral and legal wrong. However, they spent more time discussing a youth's future than past behavior, as they sought to elicit change. The judges did not degrade or exclude the offenders; rather, they addressed them in a spirit of reintegration, as worthy individuals with future potential. Although the judges set norms of appropriate sexual behavior to the youths when the offense victims were children, they did not always do so when victims were female peers. In this youth court, “real rape” was sexual offending by a youth against a child less than 12 years of age. By contrast, in about one-fifth of cases, all of which occurred against a female peer, the offending was censured only as a legal wrong (a “pseudo censure”) and less likely subject to judicial norm setting. This work examined the ways in which judges interacted with youths and censured the offenses, and what, if any, normative guidance they give concerning gender, sexuality, and violence. It is noted that the philosophical underpinnings of youth courts rests on the notion that youths are less culpable and more reformable than adults. Previous work has argued that, ideally, when sentencing youth crime, judges should engage youthful offenders in moral communication to elicit change. This work sought to analyze the frequency and content of judicial censure and moral communication in the sentencing of youth sex offenders to respond to that question. The data were obtained from the sentencing remarks for 55 sexual violence cases over a 6 ½-year period in South Australia. Tables, references