NCJ Number
224173
Journal
Criminal Justice Policy Review Volume: 19 Issue: 3 Dated: September 2008 Pages: 301-313
Date Published
September 2008
Length
13 pages
Annotation
This research examined whether the manner in which a juvenile was transferred to criminal court influenced the length of confinement sentences received.
Abstract
A significant difference in the length of confinement sentences was noted between juveniles transferred by statutory exclusion and those transferred by judicial waiver. Juveniles transferred by statutory exclusions (juveniles who commit specified crimes are required by law to be tried as adults) had sentences that were longer, all else being equal, by about 772 days compared with those who were waived by judicial waivers (Juvenile judges decide whether the circumstances of a juvenile case warrant his/her being waived to criminal court). It may be that judges issue more punitive sentences for juveniles waived under statutory mandates because they assume that there is strong public support for more punitive sentences for serious juvenile offenders, as evidenced by the legislators’ presumed responsiveness to the will of their constituencies. The study sample consisted of all males transferred to criminal courts in an urban jurisdiction of a southwestern State (n=466). The lack of females in the dataset necessitated their exclusion from the study. These data are based on the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ Juvenile Defendants in Criminal Courts, 1998. The dependent measure was the number of days a transferred juvenile was sentenced in a State jail or prison facility. A set of exhaustive dummy variables was created in order to identify juveniles transferred by judicial waivers (discretionary and presumptive), statutory exclusion, and prosecutorial direct file. Other variables were entered into the regression that traditionally used to explain sentencing outcomes in criminal courts. Offense seriousness was measured by converting each of the charge names into its felony classification provided under State statutes. Offender-specific variables were included as well (race, age, and prior record). 3 tables and 40 references