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Societal Views of Justice for Adolescents Accused of Murder: Inconsistency Between Community Sentiment and Automatic Legislative Transfers

NCJ Number
153192
Journal
Law and Human Behavior Volume: 18 Issue: 6 Dated: (December 1994) Pages: 675-696
Author(s)
L J Stalans; G T Henry
Date Published
1994
Length
22 pages
Annotation
Responses from two randomly selected samples of adult Georgia residents suggested that citizen views about when juveniles accused of homicide should be tried and punished as adults were strongly influenced by whether adolescent defendants had been abuse victims.
Abstract
Adult residents of Georgia were randomly selected and interviewed by telephone in March-April 1992 on various public policy issues. Of 805 adults selected, 681 provided complete data, for a response rate of 68.5 percent. Georgia residents preferred the juvenile court for juveniles who killed abusive parents (76 percent for first-time offenders and 77 percent for offenders with one prior adjudication). Respondents were divided on how to punish abused juveniles who had two prior adudications (49 percent recommended juvenile court) and abused juveniles with one prior offense who killed a neighbor (48 percent recommended juvenile court). Most respondents, however, preferred adult court for repeat offenders who killed and had no history of child abuse. Findings suggest that legislative automatic transfers of juveniles are overly simplistic compared to the contextual sensitivity of community sentiment and that policymakers may have serious misconceptions of societal views of fairness in this area. 41 references, 14 footnotes, and 8 tables

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