The paper first presents a brief history of juvenile justice, noting that the premise underlying the creation of the juvenile justice system in America was that of helping children who were delinquent through the delivery of treatment services to juveniles and their families. This is followed by a review of the waiver process and its impact on the goals and objectives of juvenile justice. A section of the paper then discusses judicial and prosecutorial discretion in the waiver process, with attention to various types of waivers. The next section addresses racial disparity in juvenile justice processing. It concludes that although racial disparity is evident in the process of waiving juveniles to adult court, it also exists at other decision points in the juvenile justice system as well. Other consequences of waiver are also discussed, notably the recidivism rate for juveniles processed in an adult court. One study compared waived youths with a matched control group of juveniles retained in the juvenile justice system. The recidivism rates were greater for waived juveniles by every measure of recidivism used. Thus, the waiver process is pervaded by racial disparity and virtually unlimited levels of discretion with few precise standards for waiver decisionmaking. Future research should focus on the effectiveness and consequences of transferring juveniles to adult court and also examine the criteria used to determine whether or not a youth is amenable to treatment and poses an extraordinary danger to the community. 30 references