NCJ Number
124556
Date Published
1989
Length
8 pages
Annotation
This article provides a general overview of the adult court reference process in Minnesota and elsewhere and summarizes some of the policy issues it raises.
Abstract
Under current Minnesota law, a juvenile who commits a criminal act is normally dealt with under the juvenile court system rather than the adult criminal system. While the latter may be predicated on punishment and retribution, the juvenile court system is a civil process designed to protect the juvenile from the consequences of unlawful conduct, rehabilitate the juvenile, and promote public safety. In some cases, however, when a more punitive response may be necessary, the law provides a process by which the juvenile may be "referred for adult prosecution." The nationwide trend in this area is away from broad, unstructured juvenile court decisionmaking and toward explicit, objective legislative standards. This policy brief holds that if older juveniles are increasingly likely to be subjected to adult sanctions, which appears to be the case in Minnesota and nationwide, then the juvenile court process by which these juveniles are referred for criminal prosecution must be fair and principled -- relying on such objective criteria as the nature of the crime, the age of the juvenile, and the extent of prior delinquent conduct. State juvenile codes use three processes for referring juvenile offenders to adult prosecution: judicial waiver systems, legislative waiver systems, and prosecutorial waiver systems. Many states, like Minnesota, have "hybrid" reference procedures which combine aspects of the judicial and legislative waiver systems. Reference processes raise such important policy issues as overall sentencing policy, juvenile court discretion, public safety concerns, and prior record concerns, all of which deserve to be taken into consideration. 20 footnotes.