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Changing Borders of Juvenile Justice: Transfer of Adolescents to the Criminal Court

NCJ Number
192949
Editor(s)
Jeffrey Fagan, Franklin E. Zimring
Date Published
2000
Length
456 pages
Annotation
This book presents 12 papers by leading scholars that focus on the political, substantive, procedural, and empirical dimensions of decisions that pertain to the transfer of juveniles from juvenile court to adult court, along with the consequences of such decisions.
Abstract
Part 1 focuses on the basic structures and concepts that have developed around the practice of transfer from juvenile to criminal court. The first chapter launches this enterprise by tracing the evolution of transfer as a practice and an issue in the early days of juvenile court operations in Chicago. This is followed by a paper that analyzes the traditionally dominant mode of judicial waiver decisions in juvenile court. Another paper in this section addresses the proliferation of legislative mandates for the transfer of offense categories and age-offense combinations. Other chapters in this section consider the variety of ways in which juvenile courts have been given expanded punishment powers; appellate review of transfer decisions made under variously configured systems; and the importance of waivers being determined by judicial decision. Part 2 shifts attention from the structure of transfer to some of the organizational and behavioral effects of transfer, as chapters discuss the consequences of transfer; race and transfer; forensic clinical evaluations related to waiver of jurisdiction; and the reproduction of juvenile justice in criminal court in New York State. The final section of the book contains chapters on the policy significance of current knowledge. One chapter discusses what developmental psychology can teach about the appropriate directions of transfer policy. The final chapter synthesizes the transfer policy implications drawn from the common themes found throughout the volume. Chapter tables, figures, and references, and case, name, and subject indexes