Practice Profile: Juvenile Transfer to Adult Court

All states have mechanisms in place (including judicial waivers, statutory exclusions, and prosecutorial direct-files) that allow for juveniles (who commit certain serious or violent offenses) to be transferred for prosecution in the adult criminal court system. The practice is rated Ineffective for multiple crime/delinquency types. Youths transferred to adult court had slightly higher odds of recidivating, compared with nontransferred youth; however, this result was nonsignificant.

Practice Goals/Target Population

All states have laws that allow for juveniles under 18 to be transferred for prosecution in the adult criminal court system, even though their cases usually fall under the jurisdiction of the juvenile court. Transferring juveniles to adult court is based on the belief that some juveniles cannot be sufficiently punished in juvenile court or helped by rehabilitative efforts of the juvenile justice system. Juvenile transfer laws tend to focus on juveniles who commit serious and violent offenses.

Practice Components

There are three primary mechanisms in place that allow for the transfer of juveniles to adult criminal court: judicial waivers, statutory exclusion, and prosecutorial direct-file (Griffin et al. 2011).

Judicial waivers allow the decision to transfer juveniles to reside solely with the judge. After a case is filed in juvenile court, the judge can decide whether to waive (i.e., transfer) the case to adult court following a formal hearing. All states set minimum thresholds or requirements that must be met for a case to be waived to adult court, but the decision is usually based on the discretion of the judge, who can consider a variety of factors such as age, mental capacity, maturity, prior delinquency, chances for rehabilitation, and the nature of the current offense.

Statutory exclusion is a legislative mechanism that allows for the automatic transfer of juveniles to adult court if they are charged with certain violent and serious offenses (such as murder). These cases bypass the juvenile court system entirely, and are filed in adult criminal courts; the adult courts then have exclusive jurisdiction over the juvenile’s case.

Prosecutorial direct-file allows the decision to transfer juveniles to reside with the prosecutor. The case may be filed in either juvenile court or adult criminal court. There is usually no formal hearing to determine which court may be appropriate to handle a juvenile’s case, and there are generally no formal standards or requirements. It is up to the discretion of the prosecutor whether to waive a case involving a juvenile into adult court.
 

Practice Theory

There are two main rationales behind juvenile transfers. First, juvenile transfers to adult court serve as a general deterrent, by treating all juveniles charged with certain violent offenses as adults to reduce overall juvenile crime. Juvenile transfers also serve as a specific deterrent by reducing recidivism among juveniles transferred to adult court. The perceived deterrent effect assumes that juvenile courts are perceived as too lenient or incapable of treating serious those who have committed the most serious offenses, whereas adult courts issue stronger punishments and can handle serious criminality (Myers 2003).

Zane, Welsh, and Mears (2016) included additional tests—called moderator analyses—to see if any other factors impacted the education-related outcomes. Specifically, the authors looked at the impact of the transfer mechanism (i.e., statutory exclusion, judicial waiver, or other methods of transfer such as prosecutorial direct-file). The results showed that statutory exclusion and other methods of transfer had no significant effect on the odds of transferred youths recidivating. However, the results showed a significant effect of judicial waiver (odds ratio = 2.09), which suggests that judicial waiver of juveniles to adult court may increase recidivism of transferred youths, compared with nontransferred youths.

These sources were used in the development of the practice profile:

These sources were used in the development of the practice profile:

Griffin, Patrick, Sean Addie, Benjamin Adams, and Kathy Firestine. 2011. Trying Juveniles as Adults: An Analysis of State Transfer Laws and Reporting. National Report Services Bulletin. Washington, D.C.: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.

Jordan, Kareem L. 2012. “Juvenile Transfer and Recidivism: A Propensity Score Matching Approach.” Journal of Crime and Justice 35(1): 53–67.

Myers, David L. 2003. “The Recidivism of Violent Youth in Juvenile and Adult Court: A Consideration of Selection Bias.” Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice 1(1): 79–101. 

Following are CrimeSolutions-rated programs that are related to this practice:

Juvenile Transfer to Adult Court (Pennsylvania)

Why might a practice's outcome ratings differ from the ratings of specific programs encompassed by that practice?