Donna M. Bishop

The Transfer of Juveniles to Criminal Court: Does it Make a Difference?

Recidivism of 2,738 juvenile offenders who were transferred to criminal court in Florida in 1987 was compared with that of a matched sample of delinquents who were retained in the juvenile system. Recidivism was examined in terms of rates of reoffending, seriousness of reoffending, and time to failure, with appropriate adjustments made for time at risk. By every measure of recidivism employed, reoffending was greater among transfers than among the matched controls.

The Influence of Race in Juvenile Justice Processing

This article examines the effect of defendants race on juvenile justice processing in a large southern state. The study traces the movement of a cohort of over 50,000 youths through multiple decision-making stages from intake screening to judicial disposition. After controlling for legal and processing variables in multivariate analyses, we find that race has a direct effect on decisions made at several processing junctures. Indirect and cumulative effects of race are also addressed and implications for future research explored.

The Transfer of Juveniles to Criminal Court: Reexamining Recidivism Over the Long Term

A long-term recidivism study was conducted in Florida on matched pairs of juveniles, where one subject in each pair had been transferred to the adult system in 1987 and the other had not. Rearrest information on the pairs from their release from sanctions through November 1994 was used to determine the probabilities of rearrest and the times to rearrest of transfers and nontransfers, adjusting for time at risk. Transfer diminished the rearrest chances for property felons, an advantage that was offset by an enhanced probability of rearrest among transfers for other offense categories. Survival analysis showed that transfers were rearrested more quickly and were rearrested more times on average.

Gender Bias in Juvenile Justice Processing: Implications of the JJDP Act

* Associate, Center for Studies in Criminology and Law, University of Florida; Ph.D., 1982, State University of New York at Albany; M.A., 1974, College of William and Mary; B.A., 1968, Wheaton College. ** Professor of Sociology, University of Florida; Ph.D., 1973, Southern Illinois University; M.A., 1967, Kent State University; B.A., 1966, Muskingum College. Acknowledgment: We would like to thank John C. Henretta for his helpful comments and for statistical advice; nevertheless, we alone are responsible for any errors that remain.

Prosecutorial Waiver: Case Study of a Questionable Reform

Consistent with a trend toward more punitive responses to delinquency, many states have enacted laws that facilitate the transfer of young offenders to criminal court by bypassing the traditional waiver hearing. The most highly controversial of these streamlined transfer methods is prosecutorial waiver, which allows prosecutors to choose whether to initiate proceedings in juvenile or criminal court. This article examines the practice of prosecutorial waiver in Florida, a state that grants prosecutors extremely wide latitude with respect to the transfer of 16- and 17-year-olds. Our analyses focus on interviews conducted with prosecutors in each of the states judicial circuits, as well as individual-level case data on transfers in two urban counties. Few of the juveniles transferred via prosecutorial waiver are the kinds of dangerous, repeat offenders for whom waiver is arguably justified. This is in large part due to the lack of statutory guidelines to govern the selection of cases, the ease with which waiver is accomplished, and the lack of support among prosecutors for traditional principles of juvenile justice.

Contexts of Decision Making in the Juvenile Justice System: An Organizational Approach to Understanding Minority Overrepresentation

Significant advances have been made in our understanding of the origins and dynamics of minority overrepresentation in the juvenile justice system. Nevertheless, much remains to be learned. In this article, the authors explore the impact of race on juvenile justice processing by examining the organizational contexts in which decisions are made. They offer a theoretical framework that combines insights from organizational theory and the focal concerns perspective and that focuses on the organizational players (action sets) involved in decision making from intake to final disposition. Based on the composition of action sets, and their corresponding value orientations, the authors make predictions regarding the influence of sociodemographic, legal, and extralegal variables at each processing juncture. The empirical test provides a reasonably good fit with the data. Implications for further research are discussed.

Adult Versus Juvenile Sanctions: Voices of Incarcerated Youths

This article reports findings from face-to-face interviews with youthful offenders in Florida, about half of whom had been transferred to the adult system and half of whom were retained in the juvenile system. The focus is on the youths’global assessments of the impact of their correctional experiences relevant to subsequent offending. The overall impact of each recalled correctional disposition was rated (ranging from beneficial impact to negative impact). For respondents who had experienced multiple correctional dispositions, comparisons were made about the relative impact of low-end versus deepend juvenile commitments and juvenile versus adult sanctions. Youths believed deep-end juvenile placements were most beneficial. Those programs were viewed as having provided education or life skills. When youths viewed adult sanctions as being beneficial, the benefit was linked to the time and pain of prison confinement. Those youths who attributed positive impact to prison had “skipped” deep-end juvenile placements.

Juvenile Justice Decision‐Making Before and After the Implementation of the Disproportionate Minority Contact (DMC) Mandate

The disproportionate minority confinement (DMC) mandate was included in the reauthorization of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act in 1988 and required states to assess the extent DMC was evident and to develop strategies to address the issue. The DMC mandate was designed to achieve equal treatment of youth within the juvenile justice system. In the present study, we analyzed the predictors of juvenile justice decision‐making before and after the mandate to determine the impact of possible changes in the relative influence of legal criteria and extralegal considerations, especially race, on case outcomes in one juvenile court. The findings indicate that the factors impacting decision‐making, for the most part, did not change in significance or relative impact though some unanticipated race effects were found at judicial disposition following the mandate.

THE EFFECTS OF PRENATAL PROBLEMS, FAMILY FUNCTIONING, AND NEIGHBORHOOD DISADVANTAGE IN PREDICTING LIFE- COURSE-PERSISTENT OFFENDING

Research examining Moffitts dual taxonomy theory of offending has generally supported the idea that neuropsychological deficits interact with disadvantaged familial environments to predict life-course-persistent offending. Most research, however, has neglected to investigate the power of this interaction across different neighborhood and racial contexts. Using data extracted from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, Moffitts biosocial hypothesis is tested across different neighborhood and racial contexts. The findings indicate that the biosocial interaction predicts life-course-persistent offending only among non-Whites in disadvantaged neighborhoods. Stated differently, macro-level structural factors appear to moderate the effects of individual and family risks. That poor non-Whites reside in neighborhoods that are ecologically distinct from those in which poor Whites reside exacerbates the criminogenic effects of individual-level deficits and family disadvantage.

JUVENILE OFFENDERS AND ADULT FELONY RECIDIVISM: THE IMPACT OF TRANSFER

ABSTRACT We examined adult felony recidivism for 475 matched pairs in Florida. Each pair, matched on seven factors, contained one juvenile transferred to adult court and one retained in the juvenile justice system. We found that transfers were more likely to re-offend and were more likely to commit violence after they turned 18 years of age. This was true even after controlling for additional case details (e.g., victim injury, weapon use, gang involvement). Get tough policies that transfer juvenile offenders to criminal court may “backfire” and have a criminogenic rather than deterrent effect.