Legislative Waiver Reconsidered: General Deterrent Effects of Statutory Exclusion Laws Enacted Post-1979

• NCJ Number: 213870
• Journal: Justice Quarterly Volume: 23 Issue: 1 Dated: March 2006 Pages: 34-59
• Author(s): Benjamin Steiner; Craig Hemmens; Valerie Bell
• Date Published: March 2006
• Length: 26 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This study examined the effect on juvenile violent crime of waiver laws (processing of juveniles in adult criminal court for specified serious crimes) in 22 States that either enacted waiver laws or substantially amended their existing laws after 1979.

Abstract

Although the purpose of waiver laws is to reduce violent crime by juveniles through tougher sentencing in adult criminal courts under the concepts of retribution, rehabilitation, or deterrence, this study found that only 2 of the 22 States had declines in their arrest rates for violent juvenile crime after the waiver laws became effective. Of these two States, only Maine had an abrupt permanent change in the arrest rate for violent juvenile crime. The separate analyses for homicide/manslaughter did not show any significant changes in their respective juvenile arrest rates after waiver laws went into effect. These findings, along with those from previous similar studies, suggest that waiver laws do not have their intended effect and should be reconsidered as a means of reducing violent juvenile crime. The study first examined the legislative history of the waiver statutes for each State. It then analyzed each State's monthly juvenile arrest rate for homicide/manslaughter as well as all violent index crime for each month during the 5 years prior to the effective date of the waiver law and for each month of the 5 years after the law became effective. These data were obtained from several sets housed at the International Consortium for Political and Social Research. In order to assess the relative effects of the waiver laws, researchers used a quasi-experimental multiple interrupted time series design similar to the one used by Singer and McDowall (1988). 2 tables, 59 references, and appended comparisons of control States to intervention States, features of the waiver law for each State, and final models and fit statistics