U. S. Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs Bureau of Justice Statistics Special Report Juvenile Felony Defendants in Criminal Courts: Survey of 40 Counties, 1998 May 2003, NCJ 197961 --------------------------------------------------------------- This file is text only without graphics and many of the tables. A Zip archive of the tables in this report in spreadsheet format (.wk1) and the full report including tables and graphics in .pdf format are available from: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/abstract/jfdcc98.htm --------------------------------------------------------------- Gerard A. Rainville Steven K. Smith BJS Statisticians ----------------------------------------- Highlights 27% of the 7,135 juvenile felony defendants were sentenced to prison * In 1998 in 40 of the largest urban counties, approximately 7,100 juvenile felony defendants were adjudicated in adult criminal court. * In criminal court juveniles (64%) were more likely than adults (24%) to be charged with a violent felony. These juvenile defendants were generally regarded as serious offenders, as 52% did not receive pretrial release, 63% were convicted of a felony, and 43% of those convicted received a prison sentence. * States have expanded mechanisms by which juveniles can be charged in criminal courts. In 1998 statutory exclusion was the most common method (42%) used to charge juvenile defendants compared to the more traditional juvenile waiver (24%). * Of the 7,135 juvenile felony defendants, 62% were black, 20% were white, 96% were male, and at the time of arrest 55% were within 1 year of adulthood as defined by their State. * 66% of the juvenile felony defendants were convicted, either of a felony or a misdemeanor. Of those convicted, 64% were sentenced to jail or prison as the most serious penalty. The average prison sentence received was about 90 months. -------------------------------------- In 40 of the Nation's largest urban counties, approximately 7,100 juveniles were charged with felonies in adult criminal court during 1998. Nearly two-thirds of the defendants were charged with a violent felony. These findings are from a BJS-sponsored data collection in Baltimore City and 39 urban counties in 19 States. (The term "40 counties" in this report refers to this sample.) Information was collected on all juvenile defendants who went to criminal court. (See Methodology for complete project description.) This report provides aggregate county data. Tables of individual county data are available on the BJS website. (See .) State laws establish the age at which defendants are automatically tried in criminal courts. Defendants at or below this age (the "upper age of jurisdiction") are handled in juvenile courts unless certain criteria are met. Each State specifies the criteria that must be met for juveniles to be prosecuted in criminal court. * Transfer to criminal court traditionally involves a hearing before a juvenile court judge to determine whether a juvenile is amenable to treatment in the juvenile system. In cases where a juvenile court judge transfers jurisdiction to the criminal courts, transfer is effected by means of a judicial waiver. * State statutes can specify the criteria that will exclude a juvenile from juvenile court. Juveniles sent to criminal court by these means are said to be statutorily excluded from juvenile court jurisdiction. * The prosecutorial direct file, some-times referred to as a concurrent jurisdiction waiver, occurs where State statutes have established criteria for cases which may be prosecuted in either juvenile or criminal court. For such cases, discretion lies with the prosecutor. The most common method of transferring juveniles to adult court, statutory exclusion, represented 42% of all such cases in the 40 counties. Prosecutorial direct file accounted for 35%, and the judicial waiver, 24%. Arrest charge Nearly two-thirds of the juveniles processed in adult court in 1998 were charged with a violent felony. Almost a third were charged with robbery and about a fifth with assault. Property offenses accounted for 18% of the juvenile felony defendants. Drug offenses accounted for 15%, with drug trafficking the majority of these drug offenses. Less than 4% of the juvenile felony defendants had a public-order arrest charge. Gender and race/Hispanic origin In 1998, 96% of the juveniles charged with a felony in criminal court were male. Females made up 6% of those juveniles charged with a violent offense. Among all other general arrest charge categories (drug, property, and public-order crime), about 2% of the juvenile felony defendants were female. In 1998 in the 40 counties, 62% of the juvenile felony defendants were black, 20% were white, 16% were Hispanic, and almost 2% were another race. A majority of the juvenile felony defendants charged with a violent (60%), drug (87%), or public-order (63%) felony offense were black. Blacks were 49% of property defendants. Whites were 35% of juvenile felony property defendants and nearly 20% of juveniles charged with violent or public-order felony offenses. Hispanic juveniles represented more than 15% of those charged with a felony property offense and nearly 20% of violent or public-order felony arrest charges. Whites and Hispanics each accounted for less than 10% of juvenile felony drug defendants. Age at arrest The established upper age of jurisdiction for criminal jurisdiction varied for the 19 States in the 40 county sample. In 1998 New York had an upper age of jurisdiction of 15, 6 States (Georgia, Illinois, Michigan, Missouri, Texas, and Wisconsin) had an upper age of jurisdiction of 16, and the remainder (Alabama, Arizona, California, Florida, Hawaii, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Washington) had an upper age of jurisdiction of 17. Most juveniles (55%) in adult court in the 40 large counties were within 1 year of adulthood at the time of arrest as defined by their State. Regardless of the State upper age of jurisdiction, the majority of juveniles transferred to criminal courts would have been considered adults within a year; 40% were within 6 months of adult status. Ten percent of the juvenile felony defendants were 3 or more years away from the upper age of jurisdiction. About 26% of defendants were less than 16 years old, 31% were between ages 16 and 17, and 43% were 17 years or older. Pretrial release Fifty-two percent of the juvenile felony defendants were released prior to the disposition of their case. Those charged with a violent felony offense were the least likely to be released pretrial (45%). Fewer than 10% of defendants charged with murder were released, and under half of those charged with rape (47%), robbery (49%), or assault (47%) were released. Over 60% of those charged with property, drug, or public-order offenses were released before trial. Of the 3,576 juveniles who were released pending trial, 55% were charged with a violent offense; about 20% with a property or drug offense, and 4% were charged with a public-order offense. About half of released juvenile felony defendants were released by a non-financial arrangement (personal recognizance, unsecured, or conditional supervised release). The remaining half were released by some form of financial release (surety, deposit, cash, or property bonds). About half of released juvenile felony defendants charged with a violent (48%) or property (49%) offense were released by a financial arrangement. Sixty-four percent of released public- order defendants and 53% of released drug defendants were released by a financial arrangement. More than 70% of released murder defendants were released by a financial arrangement. Adjudication outcome Sixty-six percent of the juvenile felony defendants prosecuted in criminal court were convicted. Of the 6,568 juveniles arrested for a felony for whom adjudication outcome data were available, 63% were convicted of a felony, 2% were convicted of a misdemeanor, and 1% were adjudicated delinquent. Most cases in which the defendant was not convicted were dismissed by the court or not pursued by the prosecutor. About 1% of all juvenile felony defendants were found not guilty, by either a jury or bench trial. In 1998 59% of the juvenile defendants charged with a violent offense were convicted -- a lower conviction rate than for those juveniles charged in criminal court with property (80%), public- order (74%), or drug offenses (74%). Seventy-four percent of juvenile felony defendants charged with murder were found guilty; 7% were found not guilty. In the 40 counties, no juvenile defendant charged with murder was adjudicated delinquent. Half of the juvenile felony defendants charged with rape were convicted; 48% had cases that were dismissed or not pursued by the State, and 2% were found not guilty. Conviction offense and arrest charge The majority of convicted juvenile felony defendants were convicted for the same type of offense for which they were originally charged. For those arrested for murder and subsequently convicted, 86% were convicted of the original charge of murder. Almost 30% of the juveniles convicted had been charged with robbery: 89% of these juveniles were convicted of robbery. Sentencing Sentencing outcomes for 4,101 juvenile felony defendants convicted in criminal courts reveal that 64% received some form of incarceration (prison or jail) as the most serious penalty. Forty-three percent of those convicted were sentenced to prison, and 20% to jail as their most serious incarceration penalty. Jail sentences are for short-term confinement (usually for a year or less) in a county or city facility, while prison sentences are for long-term confinement (usually for over a year) in a State facility. About 25% received non- incarceration sentences as the most serious penalty -- primarily probation. Less than 1% of all convicted juvenile felony defendants received a fine as the most serious penalty. In 1998 juvenile felony defendants convicted of a violent offense were more likely to receive a sentence of incarceration than those convicted of a nonviolent offense. Sixty percent of juvenile defendants convicted of violent offenses received a prison sentence. An additional 12% were sentenced to jail. Nearly all defendants (94%) convicted of murder received a prison sentence, as did 68% of those convicted of rape. About 60% of those convicted of property and public-order offenses received incarceration sentences. Forty-seven percent of convicted juvenile felony drug offenders received a sentence of confinement. Sixty percent of those convicted of misdemeanors received incarceration sentences -- most frequently jail. Sentence lengths Four percent of juvenile felons received a sentence of life in prison. Including those life sentences, nearly 40% of all defendants sentenced to prison received sentences longer than 72 months. About 18% received prison terms up to 2 years. Twenty-six percent received sentences between 2 and 4 years. The most common prison sentence for violent offenders was over 72 months. For property and public-order offenders, the most common prison sentence was up to 2 years. The average or mean term of imprisonment for convicted offenders sentenced to incarceration was 89 months. The median sentence length was 60 months. The difference between these measures is due to a small number of relatively long prison terms affecting the mean. Juvenile felony defendants convicted of drug or property offenses received a median prison sentence of 36 months. Juveniles sent to prison for violent offenses received sentences with a mean length of 106 months (excluding "life") and a median length of 72 months. More than 800 juvenile defendants received a term in a local jail as the most serious sanction. The most common jail sentences were 9 to 12 months (40%) and 4 months or less (37%). Three percent of juvenile felony defendants received jail sentences exceeding 1 year. Nine hundred ninety-nine juvenile felony defendants received probation as the most serious sanction. About 3% of those sentenced to probation were to serve more than 5 years and 14%, a year or less. Over a third of the juveniles sentenced to probation were convicted of a violent felony: most of them were to serve 4 years or more. Drug offenders comprised about 29% of the juveniles sentenced to probation. Most of these drug offenders were sentenced to 2 years or less of supervision. Comparing juvenile and adult defendants in criminal courts A comparison of juvenile felony defendants with adult defendants in nearly the same set of counties in 1998 reveals differences between the most serious arrest charge. For example, 64% of juvenile felony defendants had a violent offense as their most serious arrest charge, compared to 24% of adults. Ninety-six percent of juvenile felony defendants were male compared to 82% of adult defendants in 1998. The likelihood of being released pre-trial was lower for juvenile felony defendants than for adults, generally due to their more serious arrest charges. About half of the juveniles charged in criminal courts were released pretrial, compared to about two-thirds of adults. The likelihood of conviction did not differ markedly between juvenile transferred defendants and adult felony defendants, with about two-thirds of each group being convicted of some offense (not shown in table). For violent and property conviction offenses, similar percentages of juvenile felony defendants and adults were sentenced to incarceration as their most serious sanction. Of those who received incarceration sentences, juvenile felony defendants were more likely than adults to receive prison sentences. For example, among those convicted of violent offenses, 60% of juveniles and 43% of adults were sentenced to prison. These differences could be related to criminal histories or statutory considerations which these data do not address. Methodology The Juvenile Defendants in Criminal Courts (JDCC) sample is an independent sample of cases drawn from the county sample used in the State Court Processing Statistics 1998 series. (See Felony Defendants in Large Urban Counties, 1998 http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/abstract/fdluc98.ht m> for information on the SCPS sample.) Two county substitutions were made for the JDCC dataset: Honolulu, HI, replaced Erie County, NY, and Westchester County, NY, replaced Monroe County, NY. Within each sampled site, data were gathered on each juvenile felony case. Cases were tracked through adjudication or for up to 1 year. Data for adult defendants are from the SCPS 1998 survey. Offense categories Felony offenses were classified into 12 categories for this report. These were further classified into the four major crime categories of violent, property, drug, and public-order. The following listings are a summary of the crimes in each category; however, these lists are not meant to be exhaustive. All offenses, except for murder, include attempts and conspiracies to commit. Violent offenses Murder Includes homicide, nonnegligent manslaughter, and voluntary homicide. Does not include attempted murder (classified as felony assault), negligent homicide, involuntary homicide, or vehicular manslaughter, which are classified as other violent offenses. Rape Includes forcible intercourse, sodomy, or penetration with a foreign object. Does not include statutory rape or nonforcible acts with a minor or someone unable to give legal consent, nonviolent sexual offenses, or commercialized sex offenses. Robbery Includes the unlawful taking of anything of value by force or threat of force. Armed, unarmed, and aggravated robbery, car-jacking, armed burglary, and armed mugging are included. Assault Includes aggravated assault, aggravated battery, attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon, felony assault or battery on a law enforcement officer, and other felony assaults. Does not include extortion, coercion, or intimidation. Other violent offenses Includes vehicular manslaughter, involuntary manslaughter, negligent or reckless homicide, nonviolent or nonforcible sexual assault, kidnaping, unlawful imprisonment, child or spouse abuse, cruelty to a child, reckless endangerment, hit-and-run with bodily injury, and intimidation. Property offenses Burglary Includes any type of entry into a residence, industry, or business with or without the use of force with the intent to commit a felony or theft. Does not include possession of burglary tools, trespassing, or unlawful entry for which the intent is not known. Larceny/theft Includes grand theft, grand larceny, and any other felony theft, including burglary from an automobile, theft of rental property, and mail theft. Does not include motor vehicle theft, receiving or buying stolen property, fraud, forgery, or deceit. Other property offenses Includes motor vehicle theft, forgery, fraud, receiving or buying stolen property, arson, reckless burning, damage to property, criminal mischief, vandalism, criminal trespassing, possession of burglary tools, and unlawful entry. Drug offenses Drug trafficking Includes trafficking, sales, distribution, possession with intent to distribute or sell, manufacturing, and smuggling of controlled sub-stances. Does not include possession of controlled substances. Other drug offenses Includes possession of controlled substances, prescription violations, possession of drug paraphernalia, and other drug law violations. Public-order offenses Weapons Includes the unlawful sale, distribution, manufacture, alteration, transportation, possession, or use of a deadly weapon or accessory. Other public-order offenses Includes driving-related offenses, flight/escape, parole or probation violations, prison contraband, habitual offender, obstruction of justice, rioting, libel, slander, treason, perjury, prostitution/pandering, bribery, and tax law violations. Additional notes on key variables Age Juvenile status is measured by the age at time of offense. Only those cases in which the defendant was a juvenile at time of offense were retained in the study. Race and Hispanic/Latino origin Jurisdictions were not able to report both a defendant's race and Hispanic origin. Defendants were classified as black, white, other race, or Hispanic. These four categories account for 100% of the defendants. Adjudication type To be "adjudicated delinquent" refers to a juvenile not having a record of a conviction in the criminal court. It refers to a finding of delinquency by the criminal court judge and the imposition of a juvenile court sanction. Selected reading on juveniles charged in criminal court Bishop, Donna (2000). "Juvenile Offenders in the Adult Criminal Justice System." In Tonry, M. (editor) Crime and Justice. A Review of Research (Chicago: University of Chicago Press) 81-167. Bishop, Donna and Frazier, Charles (2000). "Consequences of Transfer." In Fagan, J. and Zimring, F. (eds). The Changing Borders of Juvenile Justice: Transfer of Adolescents to the Criminal Court (Chicago: University of Chicago Press: 227- 276). Bishop, Donna, Frazier, Charles, Lanza-Kaduce, Lonn, and Winner, Lawrence (1996). "The Transfer of Juveniles to Criminal Court: Does it Make a Difference?" Crime and Delinquency, 42,2, 171-191. Bortner, M.A., Zatz, Marjorie, and Hawkins, Darnell (2000). "Race and Transfer: Empirical Research and Social Context." In Fagan, J. and Zimring, F. (eds). The Changing Borders of Juvenile Justice: Transfer of Adolescents to the Criminal Court (Chicago: University of Chicago Press: 277-320). Feld, Barry (2000). "Legislative Exclusion of Offenses from Juvenile Court Jurisdiction: A History and Critique." In Fagan, J. and Zimring, F. (eds). The Changing Borders of Juvenile Justice: Transfer of Adolescents to the Criminal Court (Chicago: University of Chicago Press: 83-144). Fritsch, Eric, Caeti, Tory, and Hemmens, Craig (1996). "Spare the Needle but not the Punishment: The Incarceration of Waived Youth in Texas Prisons." Crime and Delinquency, 42, 4, 593-609. Griffin, Patrick, Torbet, Patricia, and Szymanski, Linda (1998). Trying Juveniles as Adults in Criminal Court: An Analysis of State Transfer Provisions. Washington DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. Snyder, Howard and Sickmund, Melissa (1999). Juvenile Offenders and Victims: 1999 National Report. Washington DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. Strom, Kevin J. and Smith, Steven K. (1998). Juvenile Felony Defendants in Criminal Courts. Washington DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics (NCJ 165815). ----------------------------------------- The Bureau of Justice Statistics is the statistical agency of the U.S. Department of Justice. Lawrence A. Greenfeld is director. Gerard A. Rainville and Steven K. Smith of BJS wrote this report. Matthew Hickman provided verification. Carolyn C. Williams produced and edited the report. Jayne Robinson administered final production. Dennis Ranalli, of Pretrial Services Resource Center (PRSC), collected and processed the data, under the supervision of Jolanta Juszkiewicz. Thomas Cohen assisted in data collection. Howard Snyder and Melissa Sickmund of the National Center for Juvenile Justice provided comments. The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) provided funding for this project. May 2003, NCJ 197961 --------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------- This report in portable document format and in ASCII, its tables, and related statistical data are available at the BJS World Wide Web Internet site: --------------------------------------------- End of file 05/14/03 ih