Trying Juveniles As Adults: an Analysis of State Transfer Laws and Reporting

Publisher Marketing: In the 1980s and 1990s, legislatures in nearly every state expanded transfer laws that allowed or required the prosecution of juveniles in adult criminal courts. The impact of these historic changes is difficult to assess inasmuch as there are no national data sets that track youth who have been tried and sentenced in the criminal justice system. Moreover, state data are hard to find and even more difficult to assess accurately. In addition to providing the latest overview of state transfer laws and practices, this bulletin comprehensively examines available state-level data on juveniles adjudicated in the criminal justice system. In documenting state reporting practices regarding the criminal processing of youth and identifying critical information gaps, it represents an important step forward in understanding the impact of state transfer laws. Currently, only 13 states publicly report the total number of their transfers, and even fewer report offense profiles, demographic characteristics, or details regarding processing and sentencing. Although nearly 14,000 transfers can be derived from available 2007 sources, data from 29 states are missing from that total. To obtain the critical information that policymakers, planners, and other concerned citizens need to assess the impact of expanded transfer laws, we must extend our knowledge of the prosecution of juveniles in criminal courts. The information provided in these pages and the processes used to attain it will help inform the focus and design of additional federally sponsored research to that end.