Prosecuting Emerging Adults: The Effects of Age on Screening, Charging, and Sentencing Decisions

• In Event: Young Adults and Criminal Justice: Contexts of Violence, Community Justice, Jail, and Sentencing

Abstract

In September 2015, Attorney General Loretta Lynch urged justice system leaders to focus on emerging adults (ages 18 - 24) in conflict with the law. Although much is known about the criminal behavior and neurological differences of emerging adults, little is known about how the justice system responds to this group. Prior research indicates that emerging adults are sentenced differently than other groups, with age, race, and sex interacting to affect sentence outcomes. But few studies have examined defendant age as an independent variable affecting sentence outcomes, and fewer studies have examined the effects of defendant age on prosecutorial decisions that impact sentence outcomes. Relying on prosecution case management data for roughly 100,000 felony and misdemeanor cases prosecuted in a large Midwestern city, the current study examines the effects of defendant age on prosecutorial screening, charging, and sentencing outcomes, specifically examining variation in outcomes for emerging adults relative to other age groups.

Author

• Don Stemen, Loyola University Chicago