Fact Sheet: Transfer Of Youth To The Adult Criminal Justice System

What is "transfer?" Over the last ten years, nearly every state has changed its laws to make it easier to prosecute youth as adults. Traditionally, since a separate court for young people was created in Chicago in 1899, young people who broke the law were brought before the juvenile court. In rare cases, judges decided which youth were so violent or such chronic offenders that they were "not amenable to treatment" in the juvenile court. In such cases the jurisdiction of the juvenile court was "waived" and the youth were sent or "transferred" to the adult criminal court. In addition to this "judicial waiver" mechanism, some states had legislation that automatically excluded youth charged with the most serious offenses, notably murder, from juvenile court jurisdiction. Recently, however, states throughout the country have passed a variety of "transfer" measures to send more youth to the adult criminal court. The principal ways in which youth are prosecuted in the adult criminal court:

• Judicial Waiver: State law that allows the juvenile court judge the discretion to have the youth's case tried in the adult criminal court.
• Direct File or "Prosecutorial Discretion": State law that allows the prosecutor the discretion to have the youth's case tried in the adult criminal court.
• Statutory Exclusion: State law that automatically requires a youth's case - usually based on the age of the youth or the alleged crime or both - to be tried in the adult criminal court.

For example, in the Building Blocks for Youth report, Youth Crime/Adult Time: Is Justice Served? released on October 26, 2000, key findings reveal disturbing aspects in the transfer of youth, especially minority youth, to the adult criminal court. The findings show over-representation and disparate treatment of minority youth, and raise serious questions about the fairness and appropriateness of prosecuting youth in the adult criminal system.

Major findings show that:

• Most determinations to prosecute juveniles as adults were not made by judges (15%), but instead by prosecutors or legislatures (85%).
• Overall, 82% of youth charged in adult courts were minority youth.
• Minority youth were disproportionately charged in adult court. For example, in Jefferson County, Alabama, African American youth accounted for approximately 3 out of 10 felony arrests, but represented 8 out of 10 felony cases filed in criminal court.
• Nearly two-thirds of all youth who were detained pretrial were held in adult jails where previous research shows that youth are at serious risk of rape, assault, death, and suicide.
• White youth are twice as likely as African-American youth to be represented by private counsel. Youth who are represented by private attorneys were less likely to be convicted and more likely to be transferred back to juvenile court.
• African-American (43%) and Latino (37%) youth were more likely than White youth (26%) to receive a sentence of incarceration (as opposed to a split sentence or probation).