Mind the Gap: Making the Transition from Juvenile to Adult Criminal Justice

• In Event: Raising the Age of Juvenile Court Jurisdiction versus Transfer to Adult Criminal Court: Critical Issues

Abstract

It is well known that a disproportionate number of adults in the criminal justice system have early experiences of social care and youth justice interventions; however, not all children who offend are subject to juvenile justice, and not all those who experience juvenile justice make the transition into the adult criminal system. This paper explores the relationship between young people’s offending pathways and their experience of both youth and adult criminal justice system intervention. Using both self-report and administrative data from the Edinburgh Study of Youth Transitions and Crime (a prospective longitudinal study based in Scotland), we apply dual trajectory analysis to explore the demographic, social and economic backgrounds of young people in an attempt to explain why some are more likely to receive intervention from official agencies of social control, and why some find it harder than others to ‘mind the gap’ between juvenile and adult criminal justice. Essentially, we argue that there is a significant difference between individual offending pathways and official conviction histories and that systems of justice often curate and reproduce their own client populations based on biased decision making and labelling processes.

Author

• Susan McVie, University of Edinburgh