The Changing Borders of Juvenile Justice: Transfer of Adolescents to the Criminal Court (John D & C T Macarthur FNDTN Ser Mental Health/DEV MF) - Hardcover

Since the 1960s, recurring cycles of political activism over youth crime have motivated efforts to remove adolescents from the juvenile court. Periodic surges of crime - youth violence in the 1970s, the spread of gangs in the 1980s, and more recently, epidemic gun violence and drug-related crime - have spurred laws and policies aimed at narrowing the reach of the juvenile court. Despite declining juvenile crime rates, every state in the country has increased the number of youths tried and punished as adults. Research in this area has not kept pace with these legislative developments. There has not been a detailed, sociolegal analytic book devoted to this topic. In this collection, researchers discuss policy, substantive procedural and empirical dimensions of waivers, and where the boundaries of the courts lie. Part 1 provides an overview of the origins and development of law and contemporary policy on the jurisdiction of adolescents. Part 2 examines the effects of jurisdictional shifts. Part 3 offers insight into the developmental and psychological aspects of current and future reforms.

Fagan is Profssor of Sociomedical Sciences and Director of the Center for Violence Research and Prevention at the School of Public Health at Columbia University.

Franklin E. Zimring is William G. Simon Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley Law School. He is the author of several books, including The City That Became Safe: New York s Lessons for Urban Crime and Its Control and American Juvenile Justice.