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Date: November 22, 2024 Fri
Time: 11:31 am
Time: 11:31 am
Results for juvenile case processing
2 results foundAuthor: Rempel, Michael Title: The Adolescent Diversion Program: A First Year Evaluation of Alternatives to Conventional Case Processing for Defendants Ages 16 and 17 in New York Summary: New York is currently one of only two states in the country that defines 16- and 17-year-old defendants as criminally responsible adults. Other states handle these defendants in their juvenile justice systems, which are oriented to the best interests of the child. By comparison, New York places 16- and 17-year-olds in the same jails and courtrooms as much older adults; forecloses pretrial diversion options that would otherwise exist in the juvenile justice system; and produces case outcomes that potentially involve adult jail and prison sentences and lifetime collateral consequences in the event of a criminal conviction. Among 16- and 17-year-old defendants statewide in 2010, only 9% were in fact sentenced to jail or prison, and only 5% received a permanent criminal record; yet, these percentages involve more than 3,500 cases. All told, nearly 50,000 16- and 17-year-olds are annually prosecuted in New York’s adult criminal justice system. In the fall of 2011 New York State Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman called on state policymakers to pass legislation that would foster a more developmentally appropriate approach to 16- and 17- year-old defendants. Judge Lippman’s proposal calls for a pre-filing diversion mechanism, mirroring one now in place in the state’s juvenile justice system, which would enable some 16- and 17-year-old defendants to avoid formal prosecution. The legislation is also expected to establish policies linking more 16- and 17-year-olds to age-appropriate services and ensuring that those who complete their assigned services will not receive a criminal record. On January 17, 2012, Judge Lippman also established a pilot Adolescent Diversion Program (ADP) in nine counties, including the five boroughs of New York City, the suburban counties of Nassau and Westchester, and the upstate counties of Erie and Onondaga (housing the respective mid-sized cities of Buffalo and Syracuse). The program established specialized court parts that handle 16- and 17-year-old defendants. Participating defendants receive a clinical assessment; age-appropriate services; rigorous compliance monitoring; and non-criminal case outcomes should they complete assigned services. Accordingly, the ADP initiative seeks to spread a rehabilitative, developmentally appropriate philosophy and approach to late adolescent criminal behavior; to reduce the use of conventional criminal penalties; and to achieve these benefits without jeopardizing public safety. With funding from the New York Community Trust, the Center for Court Innovation evaluated the early operations and effects of the ADP initiative. The analysis was largely quantitative, focusing on ADP participants in all nine pilot counties whose criminal cases began in the first six months of operations (January 17, 2012 through June 30, 2012). For six of the nine counties, where case volume was sufficient to support more rigorous analysis, an impact study compared outcomes between ADP participants and a statistically matched comparison group, whose cases began one year prior to implementation (January 17, 2011 through June 30, 2011). This report is a snapshot of a work in progress; while we expect the results from this study to remain relevant to the population, we plan to conduct further research as the initiative becomes more established and more data is available. Details: New York: Center for Court Innovation, 2013. 59p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed July 11, 2013 at: http://www.courtinnovation.org/sites/default/files/documents/ADP_Report_Final.pdf Year: 2013 Country: United States URL: http://www.courtinnovation.org/sites/default/files/documents/ADP_Report_Final.pdf Shelf Number: 129374 Keywords: DiversionJuvenile Case ProcessingJuvenile CourtsJuvenile Offenders (New York City, U.S.) |
Author: Leiber, Michael J. Title: Race/Ethnicity, Juvenile Court Processing and Case Outcomes: Fluctuation or Stability? Summary: Sampson and Laub's (1993) perspective contends that community characteristics, especially underclass poverty and racial inequality, influence the social control of youth in juvenile justice proceedings. Structural factors are believed to enhance class and race stereotypes of the poor and Blacks as either criminals or drug offenders, but can also be characterized as sexual, aggressive, etc. In turn, these actual and/or perceived threats to middle class values result in the poor and Blacks being subjected to greater social control in communities evidencing impoverishment and racial inequality. An interpretation of the perspective is that the social control of youth, and especially minority youth, will fluctuate over time due to associations with and changes in the economic and racial/ethnic inequality of communities. The main objective of the present study was to use Sampson and Laub's structural theory of inequality to examine whether characteristics of communities explain the social control of youth in general but also focuses on potential racial/ethnic and drug offending disparities across White, Black, and Hispanic youth within juvenile justice proceedings. In anticipation of these possible relationships, an assessment was done to see to what extent these relationships vary or remain relatively stable over time, and if they are race and/or ethnic specific with drug offending. Data was provided by the National Juvenile Court Archive (NJCA) and represented county-level aggregated information for sixteen states involving 172 counties for over thirty years (1985, 1995, 2005, and 2009). Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression was used to predict the proportion of referrals petitioned, detained, received out-of-home placement, and change models to understand how changes in the independent variables over time influenced changes in the dependent variables over time. A second data set, also provided by NJCA, was used that represented individual-level data of all delinquent referrals in 67 counties in a Northeast state from January 2000 through December 2010. Legal variables (e.g. crime severity, prior record), extralegal considerations (e.g. gender, age), and decision-making at intake, adjudication, and judicial disposition were captured. Hierarchical generalized linear modeling (HGLM) was used to analyze the data for the purpose of simultaneously estimating the amount of variation of both the individual (level-1) and county (level-2) measures at three processing junctures. In addition to the estimation of main and interaction effects, cross-level interactions were also estimated to examine how youth from different racial/ethnic backgrounds are treated in the juvenile court depending on county of residence. In short, minimal to modest support was found for Sampson and Laub's (1993) perspective. Macro-level variables were at times found to be determinants of social control at each of the four time frames and to a somewhat greater extent in explaining case outcomes in the 67counties in a Northeast state. However, the effects were sporadic and not always in the predicted direction. In fact, underclass poverty and racial/ethnic inequality most often were not statistically significant determinants of social control. Limited evidence was also found for anticipated relationships between community characteristics and disadvantaged treatment of minorities and drug offenders. When community characteristics significantly impacted the treatment of Blacks, Hispanics, and/or drug offenders and decision-making, the effects at times resulted in leniency rather than greater social control. An examination of the results across thirty years showed, with a few exceptions, stability in the relationships rather than fluctuation or change. At the individual-level, Black drug offenders were subjected to greater social control at intake than other offenders. Hispanics and Hispanic drug offenders were also found to have a greater odds of being adjudicated compared to similarly situated Whites. At judicial disposition, Blacks and Hispanics had a greater likelihood of receiving the more severe outcome of out-home-placement compared to Whites. These effects were enhanced if a minority youth was charged with a drug offense. In addition, drug offenders and in particular, Black drug offenders and Hispanic drug offenders, were responded to differently throughout court proceedings than other types of offenders. The findings reported here indicate that underclass poverty and racial/ethnic inequality alone (or if at all) do not seem to account for these occurrences. Details: Final report to the U.S. National Institute of Justice, 2014. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed June 30, 2014 at: https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/246229.pdf Year: 2014 Country: United States URL: https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/246229.pdf Shelf Number: 132571 Keywords: Drug OffendersJuvenile Case ProcessingJuvenile CourtsJuvenile OffendersMinority OffendersPovertySocioeconomic Conditions and CrimeYouthful Offenders |