Title: Juvenile Transfers to Criminal Court in Florida: The 1994 Reforms Series: Fact Sheet Author: OJJDP Published: June 2001 Subject: Adjudication juvenile cases 5 pages 6,000 bytes ------------------ Figures, charts, forms, and tables are not included in this ASCII plain-text file. To view this document in its entirety, download the Adobe Acrobat graphic file available from this Web site or order a print copy from NCJRS at 800-638-8736. ------------------- Juvenile Transfers to Criminal Court in Florida: The 1994 Reforms Since 1995, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) has funded a multifaceted study of juvenile transfers to criminal court in Florida. One component of the study examines the impact of legislative changes on transfer outcomes. In Florida, juveniles are transferred to adult criminal jurisdiction through voluntary waiver (the offender requests prosecution as an adult), legislative waiver or statutory exclusion (legislation excludes some cases from juvenile court jurisdiction based on offense, age, or prior record), prosecutorial direct file (a prosecutor decides to file formal charges in criminal court), or judicial waiver (a judge grants a motion to move a case to criminal court). By the late 1980s, most transfers in Florida occurred through prosecutorial direct file; that is, charges were filed directly in criminal court. In 1994, the Florida legislature expanded State laws on transfer by enacting three major provisions. First, it extended prosecutorial direct file by permitting prosecutors to file charges directly in criminal court against 14- and 15-year-old defendants charged with 1 of 14 "qualifying" serious felony offenses. Second, it required prosecutors to file charges directly in criminal court against any juvenile being prosecuted for a new offense who had already been adjudicated delinquent on at least three separate occasions and for whom three separate residential placements had been previously ordered. Third, it enacted a presumptive judicial waiver for juveniles with three prior delinquency adjudications (or adjudications withheld) for felonies, one or more of which involved violence against a person or using or possessing firearms. Under Florida's presumptive judicial waiver, a prosecutor is required to request a waiver and the judge is required to grant it unless the judge provides written reasons to support processing the case in juvenile court. Florida's Data on Juveniles The data used to examine transfers to criminal court come from the Client Information System (CIS) of Florida's Department of Juvenile Justice. CIS tracks each referral to juvenile court from intake or arrest to disposition.[1] For youth transferred to criminal court, the transfer is coded as the disposition. The comparisons in this Fact Sheet are based on CIS data for transferred youth during 1993 and 1995 (before and after the 1994 reforms). Number of Transfers According to CIS data, the number of cases transferred to criminal court decreased slightly between 1993 and 1995, despite Florida's expansion of transfer authority. Transferred youth accounted for about 7 percent of all referrals in CIS in 1993 and about 6 percent of all referrals in 1995. This slight decrease occurred even though the total number of juveniles referred to the juvenile justice system rose by 20 percent between 1993 and 1995. The enhanced legal authority provided by the 1994 reforms did not increase the numbers of youth transferred to criminal court in Florida in 1995. Effects of the 1994 Reforms The 1994 reforms addressed younger offenders, juveniles who committed felony offenses, and juveniles who had significant prior records. However, data from CIS indicate that these reforms had little effect on the types of youth who were transferred in the year following the changes. The lack of immediate impact may indicate that prosecutors and judges have been slow to implement their new authority. It may also reflect differences in perception between legislators and practitioners who deal directly with criminal youth. -------------------------- For Further Information For more information on the Florida transfer study, contact: Donna M. Bishop Northeastern University Boston, MA 617-373-3327 617-373-8723 (fax) d.bishop@nunet.neu.edu Lonn Lanza-Kaduce University of Florida Gainesville, FL 353-392-1025 llkkll@crim.ufl.edu Charles E. Frazier University of Florida Gainesville, FL 352-392-5727 352-392-5065 (fax) frazier@soc.ufl.edu -------------------------- For more information and to request additional publications on juvenile transfers to criminal court, call the Juvenile Justice Clearinghouse at 800-638- 8736. --------------------------- 1. If more than one referral of an individual occurred on the same day, the referrals were grouped together as a "case." For individuals who had more than one case in a given year, the earliest referral date that resulted in transfer to criminal court was the case that was included in the study for that individual. -------------------------- Donna M. Bishop, Ph.D., Lonn Lanza-Kaduce, Ph.D., J.D., and Charles E. Frazier, Ph.D., coprincipal investigators of the Florida transfer study; Jodi Lane, Ph.D., research associate on the study; and Henry George White, J.D., project manager, contributed to this Fact Sheet. ---------------------------- The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention is a component of the Office of Justice Programs, which also includes the Bureau of Justice Assistance, the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the National Institute of Justice, and the Office for Victims of Crime. ---------------------------- FS--200122