Building Blocks for Youth

Youth Crime/Adult Time:
Is Justice Served?

Executive Summary

I. INTRODUCTION

Over the last ten years, nearly every state has changed its laws to make it easier to prosecute juveniles as adults. Traditionally, since a separate court for young people was created in Chicago in 1899, juveniles 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 transferred to adult criminal court. 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 measures to send more youth to criminal court. These measure include any or a combination of the following: lowering the age at which juveniles can be prosecuted as adults; greatly expanding the categories of crimes for which youth are automatically prosecuted in criminal court; giving prosecutors the exclusive authority to decide which juveniles are charged as adults; and limiting the discretion of judges to overturn decisions by prosecutors and law enforcement officials.

This shift in policy has occurred at a time of growing awareness of and concern about disproportionate representation of minorities in both the adult and juvenile justice systems. Numerous reports, including two by the Building Blocks for Youth initiative, have shown that youth of color are over-represented in the populations held in detention facilities and transferred from juvenile to adult court. In the Building Blocks for Youth report, "And Justice For Some: Differential Treatment of Minority Youth in the Justice System," the research demonstrates that minority youth experience a "cumulative disadvantage" as they move from arrest to referral on charges, to adjudication, to disposition or sentencing, and finally to incarceration.

Disproportionate representation is not the same thing as racial bias. Some argue that over-representation of minority youth in the justice system is simply a result of minority youth committing more crimes than White youth. Even when that is the case, a fair analysis, however, requires consideration of police practices such as targeting patrols in low-income neighborhoods, locations of offenses (on the street or in homes), differences in delinquent behavior by minority and White youth, differential reactions of crime victims to offenses committed by White or minority youth, and racial bias by decisionmakers in the system. As noted in And Justice for Some, a meta-analysis of studies on race and the juvenile justice system, two-thirds of the studies of disproportionate minority confinement showed negative "race effects" at one stage or another of the juvenile justice process.

This study, the first of its kind, takes an in-depth look at the prosecution of minority youth in criminal court. It is distinctive in several ways. First, it includes the full range of "transfer" mechanisms, e.g., judicial decisions, prosecutorial decisions, and legislative exclusions. Second, the study is broad-based, examining all the major decision points in criminal case processing, from arrest to final disposition. Third, there are a sufficient number of Latino youth to consider them separately in the analysis. Fourth, this is a multi-jurisdictional study of juvenile cases prosecuted in adult courts in 18 large urban counties across the country. Finally, the findings are based on data gathered specifically for this study and not from secondary sources.

While the study echoes some of the findings of earlier reports regarding over-representation and disparate treatment of minority youth, it also reveals disturbing aspects of the transfer process. In effect, in most cases, there is no longer an actual "transfer" process. In a marked departure from tradition, most determinations (85%) to prosecute juveniles as adults are not made by judges, but instead by prosecutors or legislatures. Moreover, although prosecution in criminal court is thought to be reserved for youth charged with the most serious offenses, this study indicates that many youth who are sent to the adult system have cases that are dismissed, resolved without conviction or transferred back to the juvenile justice system, scarcely justifying their prosecution in adult court, detention in adult jails, and subsequent incarceration in adult jails and prisons. Particular disparities in the prosecution of minority youth are also evident. Thus, this research raises serious questions about the fairness and appropriateness of prosecuting youth in the adult criminal justice system.

II. METHODOLOGY

A. Sample

This study includes cases that involved a juvenile charged with at least one felony offense. All the cases that were filed between January 1, 1998 and June 30, 1998 in 18 criminal courts were tracked from the filing date to final adjudication (i.e., dismissal or sentencing) in adult court or until March 31,1999, whichever occurred first. The jurisdictions are:

There are 2,584 cases in the study. They represent 100% of the total number of cases involving White, African-American, and Latino youth that were filed in the criminal court involving juveniles in the 18 jurisdictions for the first six months of 1998.

The 18 jurisdictions selected for this study were drawn from those that participate in the State Court Processing Statistics (SCPS) project of the Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. Department of Justice. Conducted biennially since 1988, SCPS tracks for one year a sample of felony cases filed during one month in 40 jurisdictions representative of the 75 most populous jurisdictions in the country. The jurisdictions that had the highest numbers of juvenile felony charges filed in adult court during the 1996 series of SCPS (the last year for which datawere available) were selected to participate in this study. This produced a sample of 18 jurisdictions, with the remainder having too few cases to warrant inclusion.

B. Definitions

For the purposes of this report, these terms are defined as follows:

Youth or juvenile: An individual who has not reached the statutorily defined upper age for original juvenile court jurisdiction in the state in which he or she is charged, be that 15, 16, or 17.

Minority: An individual who is of a race other than White or who is of Latino ethnicity, regardless of race.

Disproportionate representation or over-representation: The proportion of a group with a specific characteristic that exceeds the proportion of that group in the population being considered. Thus, if Latino youth in a certain county make up 25% of arrests and 50% of youth tried as adults, that group's proportion of juveniles tried as adults would constitute disproportionate representation.

Disparity: Different treatment of individuals who are similarly situated or have common characteristics.

Felony: A crime punishable by more than a year imprisonment.

Violent offenses: Include murder, rape, robbery, assault, and other crimes against persons such as domestic violence and negligent homicide.

Property offenses: Include burglary, theft, motor vehicle theft, fraud, forgery, and other property crimes such as arson, damage to property, and buying or receiving stolen property.

Drug offenses: Include drug trafficking, drug sales and delivery, drug possession, and other drug offenses such as possession of drug paraphernalia.

Public order offenses: Include weapons, felony traffic, and other public order offenses such as gambling, prostitution, rioting, corruption or escape from custody.

Transfer back: The process, available in some states, in which a juvenile charged in criminal court by a prosecutor or automatically by statute may petition the court for transfer "back" to the juvenile court. Detention or pretrial detention: Locked confinement in a juvenile detention facility or an adult jail while the case is pending.

Public defenders: Attorneys employed in government offices to represent youth in juvenile or adult court.

Private counsel: Attorneys retained and paid byjuveniles and their families to provide representation.

Assigned counsel: Private attorneys chosen by judges and compensated from public funds torepresent juveniles in particular cases. Assigned counsel are often utilized in jurisdictions where there is no existing or no full-time public defender program, or when there are multiple defendants charged in one case who require separate counsel.

C. Analyses

The analysis of the data entails making comparisons between minority and White youth across all jurisdictions (aggregate analysis) as well as jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction analysis. Aggregate analyses report overall or average findings. In some situations, the aggregate findings may mask significant differences among the 18 jurisdictions. Consequently, where appropriate, the study presents site-by-site findings in addition to the aggregate findings. Indeed, a number of the aggregate findings suggest that the transfer process is not working as expected, yet these findings may not be true for any particular jurisdiction in the study.

Several types of analyses are performed in this study. First, the study looks at over-representation. For example, is the percentage of African-American youth charged as adults higher than the percentage of African-American youth who were arrested for felony offenses? Second, the study looks at possible disparities among racial and ethnic groups, i.e., of youth charged in adult court for drug felonies, are minority youth treated more severely than White youth? Third, the study examines differences across groups by asking, within each racial/ethnic group, the percentage of the group charged with a certain category of crime (or released before trial, or convicted, or sentenced to incarceration, etc.), comparing the percentages across groups.

Finally, the study provides findings on the overall impact on youth of the transfer process, regardless of race, by examining whether and when youth are released on the charges (either with or without money bail), the amount of bail, and the percentage of youth ultimately convicted of the charges.

III. STUDY OVERVIEW

The study found that minority youth, particularly African-American youth, were over-represented and received disparate treatment at several stages of the process. In some jurisdictions, African-American youth were over-represented in felony charges filed in adult court compared to their percentage in the felony arrest population, most evident in charges for drug and public order offenses. African-American youth were significantly less likely to be represented by private counsel, and youth represented by private counsel were less likely to be convicted of a felony and more likely to be transferred back to juvenile court. Of youth not convicted of their original charges, White youth were twice as likely as minority youth to have their charges reduced to a misdemeanor.

African-American youth were more likely to be held pretrial in adult jails, while Latino youth were more likely to be held in juvenile facilities.

In other aspects of the process, minority youth received treatment comparable to or even more favorable than White youth. For example, of youth released on bail, the average amount of bail for African-American youth was significantly lower than for White youth, and the average bail for White youth was significantly lower than for Latino youth. Violent cases involving White youth took longer to adjudicate than those involving minority youth.

A number of the findings raise significant concerns about the manner in which youth, regardless of race, are prosecuted in the adult criminal justice system. First, 85% of determinations of whether tocharge a juvenile as an adult were not made by judges, but by prosecutors or by legislatures through statutory exclusions from juvenile court. Second, prosecution in adult court is expected to be reserved for youth charged with the most serious offenses. However, several of the findings in this report suggest that cases brought against youth prosecuted as adults were either not particularly serious or not very strong. For example, a substantial portion of those prosecuted as adults were charged with non-violent offenses, and many were not convicted or were transferred back to the juvenile court for disposition. If one of the main goals of these transfer laws was to adjudicate cases of children who commit severe offenses in the adult criminal justice system, this study suggests that this goal is not being achieved. The findings suggest that the adult criminal court is taking on numerous cases that should be prosecuted in the juvenile justice system. Furthermore, despite the fact that a great many youth had their cases dismissed, reduced to misdemeanors, or transferred, two-thirds of the youth who were detained pretrial were held in adults jails.

IV. MAJOR FINDINGS

A. Felony Arrests

Arrest figures were available for 10 of the 18 jurisdictions and only for African-American youth. (Available figures combined White and Latino youth.)

B. Charges Filed

C. Charging Mechanism

D. Pretrial Release and Detention

E. Place of Pretrial Detention

F. Results of Prosecution

G. Attorney

H. Sentences

V. CONCLUSION

Like the earlier reports by the Building Blocks for Youth initiative, this research raises serious concerns about the fairness of the justice system. The data indicate that minority youth, particularly African-American youth, receive disparate treatment at several points in the process. On the other hand, the data demonstrate that the system is not monolithic, and minority youth actually receive more favorable treatment (or treatment that seems more favorable) in some circumstances. One value of this research is that it allows a more in-depth examination of these issues. In this study, however, it was impossible to explore in detail the reasons why these disparities exist. Consequently, there is a strong need for more comprehensive research in this area. One partial explanation for some disparity is that White youth were twice as likely as African-American youth to be represented by private counsel who are not burdened by the high caseloads that public defenders carry.

Perhaps the most significant contribution of this research is the spotlight it throws on those aspects of the justice system that appear to work contrary to traditional reasons for prosecution of youth in adult court. The decision to prosecute a juvenile as an adult has momentous consequences for the individual involved. This study found that nearly two-thirds of the juveniles detained pretrial were held in adult jails pending disposition of their cases. Of those, one-third were confined with the general adult inmate population. Yet, the overall high pretrial release rates (often with no bail required), high non-conviction rates, and high probation rates suggest that the cases filed in adult court in many instances may not be sufficiently serious or strong. Since most states have committed themselves to increased prosecution of juveniles in adult court, this is clearly an area that requires additional research, policy review, and new legislation to ensure that young people are not unnecessarily and inappropriately swept up into the adult criminal justice system.

AFTERWORD

This study is the third report that will be published this year by Building Blocks for Youth, a multi-year initiative to protect minority youth in the justice system and promote rational and effective juvenile justice policies. The initiative has five major components:
  1. Research on the disparate impact of the justice system on minority youth, on the effects of new adult court transfer legislation in the states, on the privatization of juvenile justice facilities by for-profit corporations, and on the media's portrayal of crime, youth and race.
  2. Analyses of decision-making at critical points in the justice system, including arrest, detention, adjudication, and disposition;
  3. Direct advocacy on behalf of youth in the justice system, particularly on issues that disproportionately affect youth of color such as: conditions of confinement in jails, prisons, and juvenile facilities; access to counsel and adequacy of representation in juvenile court; and "zero tolerance" and other issues relating to school suspensions and expulsions;
  4. Constituency-building among African-American, Latino, Native American, Asian and other minority organizations, as well as organizations in the medical, mental health, legal, law enforcement, child welfare, civil rights, human rights, religious, victim's rights, and domestic violence areas, at the national, state, and local levels;
  5. Development of communications strategies to provide timely, accurate, and relevant information to these constituencies, public officials, policymakers, the media, and the public.
The partners in the initiative are the Youth Law Center, American Bar Association Juvenile Justice Center, Communication Works, Juvenile Law Center, Justice Policy Institute, Minorities in Law Enforcement, National Council on Crime and Delinquency, and Pretrial Services Resource Center.

This document was prepared by Jolanta Juszkiewicz, Ph.D. of Pretrial Services Resource Center for the Building Blocks for Youth initiative. The initiative is supported by Grant # 98-DD-VX-0079 awarded by the Bureau of Justice Assistance, U.S. Department of Justice; by Grant # 98-JN-FX-K003 awarded by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, U.S. Department of Justice; and by grants from the Annie E. Casey, Ford, Walter Johnson, MacArthur, William T. Grant, MOH and Rockefeller foundations, and the Center on Crime, Communities & Culture of the Open Society Institute. The Bureau of Justice Assistance and the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention are components of the Office of Justice Programs, which also includes the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the National Institute of Justice, and the Office for Victims of Crime. Points of view or opinions in this document are those of the author and do not represent the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice or of the supporting foundations.

The author would like to gratefully acknowledge the vision and effort of the many individuals forming the Building Blocks for Youth initiative. Special thanks are extended to Mark Soler, President of the Youth Law Center; Vincent Schiraldi, President of the Justice Policy Institute; James Austin, Co-Director of the Institute on Crime, Justice, and Corrections at The George Washington University; Jeffrey Butts, Senior Researcher at the Urban Institute; Patricia Puritz, Director of the American Bar Association Juvenile Justice Center; Alan Henry, Executive Director of the Pretrial Services Resource Center; and staff from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention of the U.S. Department of Justice.

The Author

Jolanta Juszkiewicz is Deputy Director of Administration at the Pretrial Services Resource Center (PSRC), serving as project director of the State Court Processing Statistics, a Bureau of Justice Statistics project, which collects criminal case processing information in 40 large urban courts. Prior to joining PSRC in 1984, Ms. Juszkiewicz held positions of Judicial Fellow at the Supreme Court of the United States, Social Science Program Specialist at the National Institute of Justice, and Social Science Analyst at the Office for the Improvements in the Administration of Justice, U.S. Department of Justice. Ms. Juszkiewicz earned her doctoral degree in Political Science from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. Ms. Juszkiewicz serves as Vice-chair of the American Bar Association Committee on Race and Racism in the Criminal Justice System and is a member of the Research Feedback Group of the International Association of Chiefs of Police; and serves on the Board of Directors of the Center for Multicultural Human Services in Falls Church, Virginia.

Pretrial Services Resource Center

The Pretrial Services Resource Center (PSRC) is an independent, non-profit clearinghouse for information on pretrial issues and a technical assistance and training provider to pretrial practitioners, criminal justice officials, academicians, and community leaders nationwide. The PSRC offers assistance regarding pretrial services agencies, pretrial services programming and management, and jail overcrowding. Since its inception in 1976, the PSRC has helped criminal justice professionals achieve the often conflicting goals of maintaining the rights of defendants, ensuring public safety, and maintaining the integrity of the criminal justice system by providing information, publications, training, and assistance on pretrial issues at Federal, State, and Local levels.

 

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Building Blocks for Youth
For a fair and effective youth justice system
...a comprehensive effort to protect minority youth in the justice system
and to promote rational and effective juvenile justice policies...