RUNNING HEAD: What are the consequences of transferring youth to adult court?
Dawson 1
What are the consequences of transferring youth to adult court?
Dylan Dawson
Arizona State University
CRJ 404: Juvenile Delinquency
August 7, 2020
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When it comes down to what determines when a juvenile should be transferred
to an adult court, it is safe to assume that most people would agree that it should be
reserved for more serious offenses. While this is often the strategy, there is a necessity
that cases should be examined more closely and assessed individually. This
determination stems from the basis that there should be a hesitation before transferring
delinquent youth to adult court. There are serious consequences that comes from this
type of transfer. These range from lack of evidence that using the adult court acts a
deterrent to delinquency, to the deprivation of specialized resources that may only be
found in the juvenile justice system. While a transfer to an adult court is not completely
disadvantageous, there is proof that yields certain benefits. Such as that after a juvenile
is tried as an adult, their record will not be expunged when they reach a certain age. All
in all, the goal of this paper will weigh the advantages and drawbacks of juvenile
transfers to adult court. Ultimately, concluding with the persuasion that transfers only
need to be utilized after a careful review on a case-by-case basis.
The largest reason that the use of juvenile transfer became more present was in
an effort to crack down on the rise of crime in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Juvenile
arrests for violent offenses jumped a dramatic 64 percent in the nation between 1980
and 1994 (Butts and Travis, 2002). This sharp rise in juvenile crime also lead to a
media frenzy with more high-profile cases being heavily publicized. The news would
often showcase examples of more serious violent offenses which eventually lead to
public distrust with the juvenile justice system. Public perception at the time believed
that delinquent youth were legitimate threats to public safety and that the juvenile justice
system was inadequate at interviewing them. As this narrative spread throughout the
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nation, there was a sense of pressure put on lawmakers to assist in this outbreak.
Thus, began nationwide juvenile law reform and expansion. Many new laws that were
adopted included the lifting of the age restriction for juvenile transfer. Other legislation
included an additional set of crimes that would qualify for transfer, added statutory
exclusion and prosecutorial discretion (Griffin, 2006). This legal expansion shifted the
route in which transfers were produced. Going from the sole decision of a juvenile court
judge to a new attitude of transferring whomever fell into the net of new laws put in
place. As a result, punishing the offense rather than the offender.
The process to transfer juveniles to an adult court includes three main
mechanisms: judicial waiver, automatic (statutory) transfer, and prosecutorial-direct file.
The first to be described is the judicial waiver. This occurs when the judge of the
juvenile court decides it is best that the offender would be best suited for the adult court.
This also strips the protections that the juvenile jurisdiction provides. Judicial waiver is
often utilized in cases where the offense egregious or a constant repetitive offender in
which the juvenile system appears to be failing (Griffin, 2011). The next, automatic
transfer is quite straightforward. This type of transfer occurs when the offender meets a
certain legislative criterion which warrants the automatic transfer to an adult court. In
other words, this type of transfer is also typically referred to statutory exclusion.
Meaning that certain crimes would exclude the inclusion of juvenile jurisdiction. Another
form of automatic transfer is that if a juvenile has previously been charged as an adult,
they will retain that adult status for future offenses. Almost all states have laws with this
statute often referred to as, “Once an adult, always an adult”. The third most common
type of transfer is also the least commonly used between the three. There are some
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states that include legislation that warrants some offenses have jurisdiction in both the
adult and juvenile systems. In order to determine which court the direction of the case
will head, is up to the prosecutor to choose which jurisdiction will hold authority over the
case (Snyder and Sickmund, 2006).
As to no surprise, the effects of this crack-down on juvenile delinquency
obviously lead to an increase of juvenile transfers into the adult court and therefore a
rise of adolescents incarcerated in facilities designed for adult corrections.
Unfortunately, there is not a nationwide study available that was able to track the
specific numbers of the increase in juvenile transfers. However according to a Bureau
of Justice Statistics study across 40 of the nation’s largest urban counties, they found a
peak with an estimated 7,100 juvenile defendants charged with felonies in adult court in
