A Developmental Perspective on Serious Juvenile Crime : When Should Juveniles Be Treated as Adults ?

Vol. 63, No. 2 DEBATES OVER how society should respond to serious juvenile crime can be framed from many vantage points. Within a moral framework, one might very reasonably raise questions about fairness and justice, and probe whether treating juvenile crime in a particular way strikes an acceptable balance between the rights of the offender, the interests of the offended, and the concerns of the community. Within a legal framework, the discussion might focus on the ways in which a given approach to juvenile crime fits within the broader compass of the law, and on the logic of the legal analysis that undergirds the proposed policy. From a political perspective, deciding how to respond to serious juvenile crime raises an entirely different set of concerns: What does the larger community want to accomplish, what sorts of social and legal policies might achieve these goals, which of the inevitable trade-offs are acceptable, and what are politicians willing to do to satisfy their constituents? And from a practical point of view, one might raise questions about the shortand long-term consequences of one set of policies versus another: Does a given approach to juvenile crime strike a satisfactory balance among the community’s legitimate, but often conflicting, interests in public safety, retribution, deterrence, and rehabilitation? Regardless of the perspective one uses to examine the issues, the fact that juvenile crimes—even very serious and very violent crimes—are committed by individuals who are not adults adds an element to the discussion that cannot be ignored. The moral, legal, political, and practical concerns that one brings to the table for a discussion of juvenile crime may be very different from those that are raised in a discussion of adult crime, simply because of the developmental status of the offender. A fair punishment for an adult may seem unfair when applied to a child who may not have understood the consequences of his actions. The ways we interpret and apply laws may rightfully vary when the specific case at hand involves a defendant whose understanding of the law is limited by immaturity. The practical and political implications of sanctioning offenders in a particular fashion may be very different when the offender is young than when he is an adult. The purpose of this article is to add the perspective of developmental psychology to the current debate about the appropriateness of transferring serious juvenile offenders to adult court. Generally speaking, a developmental perspective examines the soundness of age-based legal policies in light of scientific research and theory on psychological development. It asks whether the distinctions we draw between people of different ages under the law are sensible in light of what we know about age differences in legally-relevant aspects of intellectual, emotional, or social functioning. Our primary task in the pages that follow is to examine the evidence on the development of legally-relevant competencies, capacities, and capabilities and to suggest whether, on the basis of what we know about development, a jurisdictional boundary should be drawn between juveniles and adults, and if so, at what age it should be drawn. Although we shall indirectly address whether considerations of public safety, deterrence, and retribution are so compelling that they outweigh any claims that can be made on the basis of observed differences between adolescents and adults, a direct examination of this issue does not fall squarely within the bailiwick of developmental psychology. It is crucial to ask whether transferring juveniles to the adult criminal justice system in fact makes for more effective deterrence, community safety, or public confidence in the fairness of the legal system, and it is even more important to ask whether these goals are more worthwhile than preserving the legal distinction between juveniles and adults because of differences in their developmental status. Although a developmental perspective can inform the discussion of these moral, political, and practical questions, it cannot answer them.