Juvenile to Criminal Court

Juvenile to Criminal Court

Juvenile Offender

A juvenile offender is an offender who is too young to be tried as an adult. The age at which a person can be tried as an adult varies between states, but is ordinarily the age of seventeen or eighteen. This age can go down for certain serious offenses, such as homicide or sexual assault. One of the more hotly debated subjects with regard to juveniles has to do with the option to waiver to adult court. Currently, there are three mechanisms by which a juvenile's case may be waived to an adult court (Becroft, 2006).

In 1997, U.S. courts with juvenile jurisdiction handled nearly 1.8 million delinquency cases. More than half (57% or 996,000) of these cases were handled formally (that is, a petition was filed requesting an adjudication or waiver hearing). In 1997, waivers to criminal court represented less than 1% (approximately 8,400 cases) of the formally processed delinquency caseload.

The proportion of formally processed cases waived to criminal court varied by offense. For example, in 1997, 1.5% (3,300) of all formally processed person offense cases were waived to criminal court. From 1989 through 1992, formally processed drug offense cases were more likely to be waived to criminal court than any other offense group. The proportion of petitioned drug offense cases that were waived peaked at 4.1% (1,800 cases) in 1991 and has declined since then (1.1% or 1,300 cases in 1997) (Bryan, 2010). Since 1993, formally processed person offense cases were more likely to be judicially waived and were waived in greater numbers than cases involving other offenses. The number of delinquency cases judicially waived to criminal court reached a peak in 1994 with 11,700 cases. This represented a 73% increase over the number of cases waived in 1988 (6,700).

Since 1994, however, the number of cases waived to criminal court has declined 28% to 8,400 cases. Through 1992, property offenses outnumbered person offenses among waived cases. This trend reversed in 1993, as person offense cases accounted for a greater proportion of the waived caseload than property offense cases (43% versus 38%).

Between 1994 and 1997, the decline in waived person offense cases (35%) outpaced the decline in waived property offense cases (26%). By 1997, the proportion of formally processed person offense cases (40% or 3,300 cases) that were waived was about the same as for formally processed property offense cases (38% or 3,200 cases) (Burke, 2011).

Judicial Waiver Offenses

A judicial waiver occurs when a juvenile court judge transfers a case from juvenile to adult court in order to deny the juvenile the protections that juvenile jurisdictions provide. All states except Nebraska, New York, and New Mexico, currently provide for judicial waiver and have set a variety of lower age limits (Snyder, Sickmund & Poe-Yamagata, 2000). In most states, the youngest offender who can be waived to adult court is a 17 or 18-year-old, although in some states, this age is as low as 13 or 14. Usually, the offense allegedly committed must be ...