Leniency or penalty: The impact of being a juvenile on criminal court sentencing

• In Event: Juveniles and Sentencing Issues

Abstract

Historically, when examining sentence severity of youth transferred to adult court, the comparison group was youth retained in the juvenile justice system. The issue, however, is that comparisons were being made across two separate and distinct court systems. More contemporary research has started to compare juveniles to adults in the criminal justice system, which allows for stronger comparisons to be made in terms of sentence severity. In other words, recent research permits us to examine whether being a juvenile increases, decreases, or has no impact on sentencing when compared to adults in the same system. Utilizing a national sample of juveniles and adults convicted in our states’ criminal justice system, we examine this phenomenon. Policy implications and directions for future research will also be discussed.

Authors

• Kareem L. Jordan, University of Central Florida

• Brittani A. McNeal, University of Arkansas at Little Rock