Juvenile Transfer to Adult Criminal Court: Why Transfer is Not the Best Method in Addressing Juvenile Delinquency

Reducing juvenile delinquency is an important issue because today’s juvenile population will become the next generation of contributing members to society. Therefore, the juvenile justice system is faced with the challenge of creating effective methods of decreasing delinquency and providing necessary treatment to juvenile offenders. Legislators implemented juvenile transfer to adult criminal court with the intent of increasing punishments in order to deter future juvenile crime and to hold juvenile offenders accountable for their criminal behavior. This paper shows why juvenile transfer is not an effective method in addressing the issues of juvenile delinquency by looking at several studies that analyze the negative effects of transfer in increasing recidivism and serious violent crimes. Furthermore, research shows that juvenile transfer undermines the criminal culpability of juvenile offenders who are undoubtedly not as mature and psychosocially developed as adult offenders. This implies that the juvenile justice system is faced with the ongoing challenge of finding new ways to address juvenile delinquency. This paper suggests that the juvenile justice system should return to an individualized rehabilitative system that focuses on the needs of individual offenders in providing appropriate treatment and services that will allow the juvenile to re-integrate back into the community