DOJ Report: Transfer to Juvenile Justice System No Deterrent to Juvenile Recidivism

WASHINGTON — State laws that require juvenile offenders to be tried in the adult criminal justice system exert little or no effect on juvenile crime rates, according to a Justice Department report.

Compiled by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, the report also states that transferring juveniles to the adult system substantially increases recidivism among juveniles.

In recent years, in an effort to strengthen sanctions for serious juvenile crimes, many states enacted laws expanding the types of offense and offender eligible for transfer from the juvenile justice system to adult criminal courts.

Seeking to deter juvenile crime and reduce the rate of recidivism, lawmakers in states throughout the country lowered the minimum transfer age and increased the number of eligible offenses, according to the OJJDP. At the same time, states moved to circumscribe judicial discretion and expand prosecutorial discretion in relation to juvenile transfers.

The policy shift toward juvenile offender transfer is based on the assumption that more punitive, adult criminal sanctions will act as a deterrent to non-prosocial behavior and juvenile crime and recidivism, experts say.

However, laws that broaden the scope of eligibility for juvenile transfer and ease and expand the practice do not prevent or deter juveniles from engaging or re-engaging in criminal behavior, according to the report.

Conducted by Chapman University law professor Richard Redding, the report titled “Juvenile Transfer Laws: An Effective Deterrent to Delinquency?” provides an overview of research examining the deterrent effects of juvenile transfers. Redding analyzed the data and findings of large-scale, comprehensive OJJDP-funded research studies on the effect of transfer laws on recidivism spanning more than a decade.

In terms of recidivism and specific deterrence, six of the studies analyzed found higher recidivism and rearrest rates for juveniles convicted of violent offenses in adult criminal court than for similar offenders tried in juvenile courts.

The picture is less clear with respect to the general deterrent effect of transfer laws on potential or at-risk juvenile offenders. Although the studies analyzed by Redding produced somewhat conflicting findings, the “bulk of the empirical evidence suggests transfer laws have little or no general deterrent effect,” according to the report.

Higher recidivism rates are due to a number of factors, including the stigmatization often felt by the juvenile offender at being labeled a convicted felon and the “sense of resentment and injustice” often associated with being tried as an adult, according to the report.

Juvenile offenders also learn non-prosocial thinking and decision-making patterns and criminal behaviors while incarcerated with adult offenders. Juvenile offenders have less access to rehabilitation programming and family support in the adult system, and they experience decreased employment and reintegration opportunities due to a felony conviction, according to the report.

There are three types of transfer laws — legislative (automatic transfer), judicial-discretionary (judicial transfer), and prosecutorial-discretionary (prosecutorial direct-file) — and the majority of states have at least two types of coexisting transfer laws in effect, according to the report.

With prosecutorial statutes often applicable only to older and more serious offenders, 40 states and the District of Columbia have judicial and prosecutorial transfer statutes as of 2003. In addition, 25 states had reverse waiver laws in place, in which the adult criminal court judge has the discretion to transfer the defendant back to juvenile court or to treat the defendant as a juvenile for sentencing purposes.

As of 2006, 29 states had automatic transfer laws that require the transfer of a juvenile if statutory criteria are met. The District of Columbia and 45 states had judicial transfer laws, which vest the juvenile court judge with the discretion to decide juvenile transfer after the prosecution files a transfer motion.

Prosecutorial direct-file laws, which give prosecutors the discretion to file charges in juvenile or adult criminal court, were in effect in 14 states and the District of Columbia, as of 2006.

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