Waiver

One of the first decisions made at intake is determining whether a case should be processed in the criminal (adult) justice system rather than in the juvenile court. The mechanisms used to transfer responsibility for a case to the criminal court vary by State. Most States have more than one mechanism for transferring cases to criminal court. In some States, prosecutors may have the authority to file certain juvenile cases directly in criminal court. In an increasing number of States, cases that meet certain age and offense criteria are excluded by statute from juvenile court jurisdiction and are thus filed directly in criminal court. In most States, there are also statutory provisions for judicial waiver, whereby a juvenile court judge may waive juvenile court jurisdiction in certain juvenile cases, thus authorizing a transfer to criminal court. In most instances, when a waiver request is denied, the case is then scheduled for an adjudicatory hearing in juvenile court. The data described in this Report represent only cases that were transferred to criminal court by judicial waiver.

Judicial waivers to criminal court represented 0.8% of all petitioned delinquency cases in 1997 (table 11). As in 1988, the cases most likely to be judicially waived in 1997 were those involving person offenses. In 1991, drug offense cases were substantially more likely to be waived than person offense cases (4.1% versus 2.4%). However, in 1997, cases involving person offenses were once again more likely to be judicially waived than those involving drug offenses (1.5% versus 1.1%) were. In 1997, 0.7% of cases involving property offenses were waived to criminal court, down from 1.1% in 1988.

The number of delinquency cases judicially waived to criminal court grew 73% between 1988 and 1994 and then dropped 28% between 1994 and 1997. The net result was that the number of cases judicially waived was 25% greater in 1997 than in 1988 (table 12). The greatest relative change between 1988 and 1997 in waived cases was for drug and person offense cases (78% and 74%, respectively). There was a 19% increase in waived public order offense cases and an 11% decline in waived property offense cases.

The pattern of change in the number of waived cases between 1988 and 1997 varied across offense categories (figure 4). For drug cases, the number of waived cases increased substantially from 1988 through 1991 (147%) and then declined in 1992 (35%) before rising 11% between 1992 and 1997. The net result was that the number of judicially waived drug offense cases increased 78% between 1988 and 1997. The number of waived person offense cases increased substantially between 1988 and 1994 (166%) and then decreased 35% to the 1997 level. Waived property cases increased 87% between 1988 and 1991. Since 1991, the number of waived property cases generally declined, so that the number of such cases waived in 1997 was 11% less than that of 1988. For public order cases, the number of waived cases increased between 1988 and 1994 (85%) and then declined through 1997 (36%).

As a result, the offense profile of cases judicially waived to criminal court changed considerably between 1988 and 1997. The proportion of all waived delinquency cases that involved a property offense as the most serious charge declined from 53% in 1988 to 38% in 1997 (table 13). In 1997, the largest share of the waived caseload involved person offenses. The proportion of person offenses among judicially waived cases grew from 28% to 40% between 1988 and 1997. Drug offense cases increased from 11% of all waivers in 1988 to a high of 17% in 1991 and then declined to 11% in 1993. In 1997, drug offense cases represented 15% of the cases judicially waived to criminal court. The proportion of public order cases among waived cases has held steady between 6% and 9%.