Juvenile Transfer and Confinement Decisions: An Analysis of Individual and Contextual Factors

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

Abstract

Previous research has found that multiple individual-level factors, such as gender and race, influence the dispositions of juveniles. For example, minority youth are more likely to be placed in residential facilities and waived to adult court than white youth and males are more likely to be transferred to adult court than females. Research concerning contextual factors has found that youth from areas with higher concentrated disadvantage are more likely to be confined than those from more affluent areas. In addition, prior works have examined the factors influencing both the decisions to confine juveniles in a juvenile facility and transfer juveniles to adult court, but less is known about comparisons between the two. The current study seeks to fill this gap in the literature by examining the relationship between individual and county-level contextual factors and whether juveniles were transferred to adult court, confined in a juvenile detention center, or neither transferred to adult court nor confined in a juvenile detention center. The results of the current study have implications for the state’s sentencing practices in the juvenile and adult court systems.

Authors

• Brenda F. Branham, University of Arkansas at Little Rock

• Tusty ten Bensel, University of Arkansas at Little Rock

• James Golden, University of Arkansas at Little Rock