Doctoral Dissertation Research: Transferring Juvenile Offenders to Adult Court

Suny At Stony Brook, Stony Brook NY

Investigators

Abstract

A 1994 Florida law that separates the state juvenile justice system from social welfare agencies marked a change in the ideology behind juvenile justice. Once focused on protection and rehabilitation of children, the juvenile justice system, like the adult criminal justice system, now focuses more on punishment. Where previous laws reflected beliefs that children are still unformed and not fully responsible for their actions, and that they require guidance rather than punishment, the new laws reject such beliefs. This project examines how the shift in the law reflects changing attitudes toward the children it most affects, particularly African-American children. It uses two major research strategies to understand the sources and consequences of the reform of Florida's juvenile justice system. First, analysis of quantitative data on a randomly selected sample of all cases processed by Florida's juvenile courts reveals the effects of the new statewide policy on the treatment of problem youth. Second, a detailed legislative analysis of how the policy was developed and adopted into law identifies the changes in values and ideologies of childhood that guided the new policy. The results contribute to research literatures on the social construction of childhood, the workings of the criminal justice system, and the emergence of criminal justice policy.