Volume of youth transfers to adult jail questioned
Nine thousand times a year, U.S. judges move the cases of juvenile suspects into criminal court, opening the door to a stay in adult jail.
While judges say these transfers are meant for youths suspected of the most dangerous offenses, only two out of five transferred youths stand accused of a violent crime against another person, the Scripps Howard News Service found in analyzing data from almost a quarter-million cases. Most youngsters moved to adult court are charged with crimes involving drugs, weapons or property.
A case transfer flags a suspect 17 or younger as an adult. Forty-seven states allow these "certified" juveniles to be held in adult jail, the U.S. Justice Department says; 14 of them sometimes require it.
Most transferred juveniles face charges for crimes other than murder, rape, robbery or assault, National Center for Juvenile Justice data show. The Pittsburgh-based nonprofit publishes records covering 228,771 cases moved from youth court to the adult criminal justice system from 1985 to 2008.
Transfers to the adult system can negatively affect young suspects, reducing their access to social services, lengthening the time needed to resolve a case and increasing the chances that the youths will reoffend, some researchers and youth advocates say.
Judges transfer far too many juveniles, suggested Kevin Burke, president of the American Judges Association.
"There are a fair number of not-very-serious offenders who end up getting certified. I don't quite understand that, to be honest with you," Burke said, responding to the Scripps findings. The Minneapolis-area district court judge has served 27 years on the bench.
Even a very young age doesn't exempt defendants from transfer. The database shows some 1,528 suspects 12 or younger were transferred, including 623 charged with violent crimes. More -- 651 -- faced charges of property crimes.
Those data may not reflect the scope of the crimes, Burke said, explaining that some juveniles who committed more serious crimes pled to lesser charges.
Burke said he would encourage his organization's 3,000 members to reduce judicial transfers.
The volume of transferred youths somewhat mirrors teen crime rates. A national teen crime wave in the early 1990s increased the number of transfers, which crested at 13,710 in 1994, then declined and leveled off at about 9,000 a year by 2000.
Female offenders represent just 7 percent of the juvenile cases transferred during the 24 years of data collection, but their share is growing. In 1985, they constituted 5 percent of transfers (370 out of 7,212). By 2008, their share had swelled to nearly 9 percent (773 out of 8,898).
Some judges and juvenile justice experts think fewer youth suspects should be sent to adult court.
"Invariably, it's a mistake," said retired Massachusetts Judge Gordon Martin, who served as an associate justice of the Massachusetts Trial Court for 20 years and headed the Roxbury District Court in Boston. He serves on a Justice Department council overseeing juvenile justice.
Decades ago, transfer hearings took several days and the resulting decisions were among the most difficult a judge could make, Martin said. Now the transfer hearing may only be a formality.
"It's an assembly line," Martin said.
(Email reporter Isaac Wolf at wolfi(at)shns.com.)
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