Punishment, Proportionality and Jurisdictional Transfer of Adolescent Offenders: A Test of the Leniency Gap Hypothesis

36 Pages Posted: 11 Nov 2002

See all articles by Jeffrey Fagan

Jeffrey Fagan

Columbia Law School

Aaron Kupchik

University of Delaware, Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice

Akiva Liberman

National Institute on Drug Abuse

Date Written: September 23, 2002

Abstract

In the past two decades, nearly every state has expanded its authority and simplified its procedures to transfer adolescent offenders from juvenile to criminal (adult) courts. As a result, the use of jurisdictional transfer has grown steadily. These developments reflect popular and political concerns that punishment in juvenile courts is too lenient for serious crimes committed by adolescents. Yet there is mixed evidence that expanded transfer authority has produced more certain or severe punishments for adolescents prosecuted in criminal courts. Some empirical studies show that adolescents transferred to criminal court are more likely to be convicted, sentenced to prison, and serve longer sentences, compared to similar cases that remain in the juvenile court. Other studies show that transferred cases receive similar sentences or receive less severe punishments. In this article, we report the results of a natural experiment comparing detention, disposition and custodial sentence lengths for matched groups of adolescents charged with serious felony offenses in juvenile or criminal courts. We report that adolescents prosecuted as adults are at a greater risk of detention and incarceration, and if incarcerated, sentenced to longer sentences than adolescents in juvenile courts. Yet the disparity between outcomes in juvenile and criminal courts is not as large as the rhetoric surrounding this issue would lead one to believe. The resilience of common law doctrine of diminished culpability of adolescents is evident in the limited effects of expanded jurisdictional transfer activity on sentencing and punishment of adolescents in criminal court. We discuss the jurisprudential and social policy implications of denying adolescents the latitude of a traditionally more rehabilitative and lenient juvenile court.

Suggested Citation

Fagan, Jeffrey and Kupchik, Aaron and Liberman, Akiva, Punishment, Proportionality and Jurisdictional Transfer of Adolescent Offenders: A Test of the Leniency Gap Hypothesis (September 23, 2002). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=334061 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.334061

Jeffrey Fagan (Contact Author)

Columbia Law School ( email )

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HOME PAGE: http://www.law.columbia.edu/fac/Jeffrey_Fagan

Aaron Kupchik

University of Delaware, Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice ( email )

329 Smith Hall
Newark, DE 19716
United States
302 831-3267 (Phone)

Akiva Liberman

National Institute on Drug Abuse ( email )

Services Research Branch
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Bethesda, MD 20892-9589
United States
301-402-0807 (Phone)
301-443-2636 (Fax)

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