Contact: Mary Ellen Johnson
720-314-1402
[email protected]
TRYING KIDS AS ADULTS CREATES BETTER CRIMINALS
The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) recently released a national bulletin on transfer laws and concluded that they have little or no deterrent effect on juvenile crime.
The report, Juvenile Transfer Laws: An Effective Deterrent to Delinquency?, concludes that recidivism rates have actually increased because of laws that make it easier to charge and convict children in the adult criminal justice system.
“Trying kids as adults is a very contentious issue in Colorado,” said Mary Ellen Johnson, Executive Director of The Pendulum Foundation, a juvenile justice advocacy organization. “Prosecutors say that direct file, which gives district attorneys unlimited power to decide which kids to try as adults, works. Add this OJJDP report to the growing list of research that says it doesn’t.”
Key findings from OJJDP report:
- Laws to make it easier to transfer youth to the adult criminal court system have little or no general deterrent effect,meaning they do not prevent youth from engaging in criminal behavior;
- Youth transferred to the adult system are more likely to be rearrested and to reoffend than youth who committed similar crimes, but were retained in the juvenile justice system;Higher recidivism rates are due to a number of factors including the youth’s:
- Stigmatization/negative labeling effects of being labeled as a convicted felon;
- Sense of resentment and injustice about being tried as an adult;
- Learning of criminal mores and behavior while incarcerated with adults;
- Decreased access to rehabilitation and family support in the adult system;
- Decreased employment and community integration opportunities due to a felony conviction.
In 2008, Colorado’s legislature passed a bill modifying the practice of direct filing juveniles into the adult system. The bill was opposed by prosecutors and vetoed by Governor Ritter. Johnson says, “We hope that Governor Ritter will reconsider his position regarding direct file and we as a state will re-visit the whole issue of incarcerating children as adults.”