U.S. Department of Justice 

Office of Justice Programs 

Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention 

National 

Report Series 

September 2011 

This bulletin is part of the 

Juvenile Offenders and 

Victims National Report Series. 

The National Report offers a 

comprehensive statistical 

overview of the problems of 

juvenile crime, violence, and 

victimization and the response 

of the juvenile justice system. 

During each interim year, the 

bulletins in the National 

Report Series provide access 

to the latest information on 

juvenile arrests, court cases, 

juveniles in custody, and 

other topics of interest. Each 

bulletin in the series highlights selected topics at the 

forefront of juvenile justice 

policymaking, giving readers 

focused access to statistics 

on some of the most critical 

issues. Together, the National 

Report and this series provide 

a baseline of facts for juvenile 

justice professionals, policymakers, the media, and concerned citizens. 

Trying Juveniles as 

Adults: An Analysis of 

State Transfer Laws and 

Reporting

Patrick Griffin, Sean Addie, Benjamin Adams, and Kathy Firestine 

A Message From OJJDP 

In the 1980s and 1990s, legislatures in nearly every state expanded transfer laws that 

allowed or required the prosecution of juveniles in adult criminal courts. The impact of 

these historic changes is difficult to assess inasmuch as there are no national data sets that 

track youth who have been tried and sentenced in the criminal justice system. Moreover, 

state data are hard to find and even more difficult to assess accurately. 

In addition to providing the latest overview of state transfer laws and practices, this bulletin 

comprehensively examines available state-level data on juveniles adjudicated in the criminal 

justice system. In documenting state reporting practices regarding the criminal processing 

of youth and identifying critical information gaps, it represents an important step forward in 

understanding the impact of state transfer laws. 

Currently, only 13 states publicly report the total number of their transfers, and even fewer 

report offense profiles, demographic characteristics, or details regarding processing and 

sentencing. Although nearly 14,000 transfers can be derived from available 2007 sources, 

data from 29 states are missing from that total. 

To obtain the critical information that policymakers, planners, and other concerned citizens 

need to assess the impact of expanded transfer laws, we must extend our knowledge of the 

prosecution of juveniles in criminal courts. The information provided in these pages and 

the processes used to attain it will help inform the focus and design of additional federally 

sponsored research to that end. 

Jeff Slowikowski 

Acting Administrator 

Access OJJDP publications online at ojjdp.gov 
 

 

 

All states set boundaries where childhood ends and 

adult criminal responsibility begins 

Transfer laws alter the 

usual jurisdictional age 

boundaries for 

exceptional cases 

State juvenile courts with delinquency jurisdiction handle cases in which “juveniles” are accused of acts that would be 

crimes if “adults” committed them. Generally, these terms are defined solely by 

age. In most states, youth accused of violating the law before turning 18 years old 

come under the original jurisdiction of the 

juvenile courts, whereas those accused of 

violating the law on or after their 18th 

birthdays have their cases processed in 

criminal courts. Some states draw the juvenile/adult line at the 17th birthday, and 

a few draw it at the 16th birthday. 

However, all states have transfer laws 

that allow or require criminal prosecution 

of some young offenders, even though 

they fall on the juvenile side of the jurisdictional age line. 

Transfer laws are not new, but legislative 

changes in recent decades have greatly 

expanded their scope. As a result, the 

transfer “exception” has become a far 

more prominent feature of the nation’s 

response to youthful offending. 

Most states have 

multiple transfer 

mechanisms 

Transfer laws vary considerably from 

state to state, particularly in terms of flexibility and breadth of coverage, but all fall 

into three basic categories: 

n	 Judicial waiver laws allow juvenile 

courts to waive jurisdiction on a caseby-case basis, opening the way for 

criminal prosecution. A case that is 

subject to waiver is filed originally in 

juvenile court but may be transferred 

with a judge’s approval, based on 

articulated standards, following a formal hearing. Even though all states set 

minimum thresholds and prescribe 

standards for waiver, the waiver decision is usually at the discretion of the 

judge. However, some states make 

waiver presumptive in certain classes 

of cases, and some even specify circumstances under which waiver is 

mandatory. 

n	 Prosecutorial discretion or concurrent 

jurisdiction laws define a class of 

cases that may be brought in either 

juvenile or criminal court. No hearing 

is held to determine which court is 

appropriate, and there may be no formal standards for deciding between 

them. The decision is entrusted entirely to the prosecutor. 

n	 Statutory exclusion laws grant criminal courts exclusive jurisdiction over 

certain classes of cases involving 

juvenile-age offenders. If a case falls 

within a statutory exclusion category, 

it must be filed originally in criminal 

court. 

All states have at least one of the above 

kinds of transfer law. In addition, many 

have one or more of the following: 

n	 “Once adult/always adult” laws are a 

special form of exclusion requiring 

criminal prosecution of any juvenile 

who has been criminally prosecuted in 

the past—usually without regard to 

the seriousness of the current offense. 

n	 Reverse waiver laws allow juveniles 

whose cases are in criminal court to 

petition to have them transferred to 

juvenile court. 

n	 Blended sentencing laws may either 

provide juvenile courts with criminal 

sentencing options (juvenile blended 

sentencing) or allow criminal courts to 

impose juvenile dispositions (criminal 

blended sentencing). 

Nearly all states give 

courts discretion to 

waive jurisdiction over 

individual cases 

A total of 45 states have laws designating 

some category of cases in which waiver 

of jurisdiction may be considered, generally on the prosecutor’s motion, and 

granted on a discretionary basis. This is 

the oldest and still the most common 

form of transfer law, although most 

states have other, less traditional forms 

as well. 

Discretionary waiver statutes prescribe 

broad standards to be applied, factors 

to be considered, and procedures to be 

followed in waiver decisionmaking and 

require that prosecutors bear the burden 

of proving that waiver is appropriate. Although waiver standards and evidentiary 

factors vary from state to state, most take 

into account both the nature of the alleged crime and the individual youth’s 

age, maturity, history, and rehabilitative 

prospects. 

In addition, most states set a minimum 

threshold for waiver eligibility: generally a 

minimum age and a specified type or 

level of offense, and sometimes a sufficiently serious record of previous delinquency. Waiver thresholds are often quite 

low, however. In a few states—such as 

Alaska, Kansas, and Washington—prosecutors may ask the court to waive virtually any juvenile delinquency case. As a 

practical matter, however, even in these 

states, waivers are likely to be relatively 

rare. Nationally, the proportion of juvenile 

cases in which prosecutors seek waiver is 

not known, but waiver is granted in less 

than 1% of petitioned delinquency cases. 

2 National Report Series Bulletin 
Most states have multiple ways to impose adult sanctions on offenders of juvenile age 

State 

Judicial waiver Prosecutorial 

discretion 

Statutory 

exclusion 

Reverse 

waiver 

Once an adult 

always an adult 

Blended sentencing 

Discretionary Presumptive Mandatory Juvenile Criminal 

Number of states 45 15 15 15 29 24 34 14 18 

Alabama n n n

Alaska n n n n

Arizona n n n n n

Arkansas n n n n n

California n n n n n n n

Colorado n n n n n n

Connecticut n n n

Delaware n n n n n

Dist. Of Columbia n n n n

Florida n n n n n

Georgia n n n n n

Hawaii n n

Idaho n n n n

Illinois n n n n n n n

Indiana n n n n

Iowa n n n n n

Kansas n n n n

Kentucky n n n n

Louisiana n n n n

Maine n n n

Maryland n n n n

Massachusetts n n n

Michigan n n n n n

Minnesota n n n n n

Mississippi n n n n

Missouri n n n

Montana n n n n

Nebraska n n n

Nevada n n n n n

New Hampshire n n n

New Jersey n n n

New Mexico n n n

New York n n

North Carolina n n n

North Dakota n n n n

Ohio n n n n

Oklahoma n n n n n n

Oregon n n n n

Pennsylvania n n n n n

Rhode Island n n n n n

South Carolina n n n

South Dakota n n n n

Tennessee n n n

Texas n n n

Utah n n n n

Vermont n n n n n

Virginia n n n n n n

Washington n n n

West Virginia n n n

Wisconsin n n n n n

Wyoming n n n

Note: Table information is as of the end of the 2009 legislative session. 

September 2011 3 
 

Most states allow juvenile court judges to waive jurisdiction over 

certain cases and transfer them to criminal court 

State 

Any 

criminal 

offense 

Certain 

felonies 

Capital 

crimes Murder 

Certain 

person 

offenses 

Certain 

property 

offenses 

Certain 

drug 

offenses 

Certain 

weapon 

offenses 

Alabama 14 

Alaska NS 

Arizona NS 

Arkansas 14 14 14 14 14 

California 16 

Colorado 12 12 12 

Delaware NS 

Dist. of Columbia 16 15 NS 

Florida 14 

Georgia 15 13 13 

Hawaii 14 NS 

Idaho 14 NS NS NS NS NS 

Illinois 13 

Indiana 14 10 16 

Iowa 14 

Kansas 10 

Kentucky 14 14 

Louisiana 14 14 

Maine NS 

Maryland 15 NS 

Michigan 14 

Minnesota 14 

Mississippi 13 

Missouri 12 

Nevada 14 14 

New Hampshire 15 13 13 

New Jersey 14 14 14 14 14 14 

North Carolina 13 

North Dakota 16 14 

Ohio 14 

Oklahoma NS 

Oregon 15 NS NS 15 

Pennsylvania 14 

Rhode Island NS 16 NS 

South Carolina 16 14 NS NS 14 14 

South Dakota NS 

Tennessee 16 NS NS 

Texas 14 14 14 

Utah 14 

Vermont 10 10 10 

Virginia 14 

Washington NS 

West Virginia NS NS NS NS NS 

Wisconsin 15 14 14 14 14 14 

Wyoming 13 

Notes: An entry in the column below an offense category means that there is at least one offense in that category for which a juvenile may be waived from juvenile court to criminal court. The number indicates the 

youngest possible age at which a juvenile accused of an offense in that category may be waived. “NS” 

means no age restriction is specified for an offense in that category. Table information is as of the end of the 

2009 legislative session. 

In presumptive waiver 

cases, the burden of 

proof shifts to the 

juvenile 

In 15 states, presumptive waiver laws define a category of cases in which waiver 

from juvenile to criminal court is presumed appropriate. Statutes in these 

states leave the decision in the hands of a 

judge but weight it in favor of transfer. A 

juvenile who meets age, offense, or other 

statutory thresholds for presumptive 

waiver must present evidence rebutting 

the presumption, or the court will grant 

waiver and the case will be tried in criminal court. 

State laws may require 

juvenile court judges to 

waive jurisdiction in 

certain cases 

Fifteen states require juvenile courts to 

waive jurisdiction over cases that meet 

specified age/offense or prior record criteria. Cases subject to mandatory waiver are 

initiated in juvenile court, but the court 

has no other role than to confirm that the 

statutory requirements for mandatory 

waiver are met. 

Functionally, a mandatory waiver law resembles a statutory exclusion, removing a 

designated category of cases from juvenile court jurisdiction. However, the juvenile court may retain power to make 

necessary orders relating to appointment 

of counsel, detention, and other preliminary matters. 

Nonjudicial transfer 

cases bypass juvenile 

courts altogether 

Only 15 states now rely solely on traditional hearing-based, judicially controlled 

forms of transfer: Connecticut, Hawaii, 

Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Missouri, New 

Hampshire, New Jersey, North Carolina, 

4 National Report Series Bulletin 
North Dakota, Ohio, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, and West Virginia. In these 

states, all cases against juvenile-age offenders (except those who have already 

been criminally prosecuted once) begin in 

juvenile court and must be literally transferred, by individual court order, to courts 

with criminal jurisdiction. 

In all other states, cases against some accused juveniles are filed directly in criminal court. Youth subject to direct criminal 

filing in these states may nevertheless be 

entitled to make an individualized case for 

juvenile handling at “reverse waiver” hearings before criminal court judges. Not all 

states allow this, however, and others do 

not allow it in some categories of cases. 

Prosecutors’ discretion 

to opt for criminal 

handling is often 

unfettered 

Laws in 15 states designate some category of cases in which both juvenile and 

criminal courts have jurisdiction, so prosecutors may choose to file in either one 

court or the other. The choice is considered to be within the prosecutor’s executive discretion, comparable with the 

charging decision. 

In fact, prosecutorial discretion laws are 

usually silent regarding standards, protocols, or appropriate considerations for 

decisionmaking. Even in those few states 

where statutes provide some general 

guidance to prosecutors, or at least require them to develop their own decisionmaking guidelines, there is no hearing, no 

evidentiary record, and no opportunity for 

defendants to test (or even to know) the 

basis for a prosecutor’s decision to proceed in criminal court. As a result, it is 

possible that prosecutorial discretion laws 

in some places operate like statutory exclusions, sweeping whole categories into 

criminal court with little or no individualized consideration. 

Some states designate circumstances in which the burden of proof in a 

waiver hearing is shifted to the juvenile 

State 

Any 

criminal 

offense 

Certain 

felonies 

Capital 

crimes Murder 

Certain 

person 

offenses 

Certain 

property 

offenses 

Certain 

drug 

offenses 

Certain 

weapon 

offenses 

Alaska NS 

California 14 14 14 14 14 

Colorado* 12 12 12 

Dist. Of Columbia† 15 15 15 15 

Illinois 15 15 

Kansas† 14 14 14 14 

Maine NS NS 

Minnesota 16 

Nevada† 14 14 

New Hampshire 15 15 15 15 

New Jersey 14 14 14 14 14 14 

North Dakota 14 14 14 14 

Pennsylvania 14 14 

Rhode Island* NS 

Utah 16 16 16 16 16 

* In Colorado and Rhode Island, the presumption is applied against juveniles with certain kinds of histories. 

† In the District of Columbia, Kansas, and Nevada, the presumption applies to any offense committed with a 

firearm. 

Notes: An entry in the column below an offense category means that there is at least one offense in that 

category for which a juvenile is presumed to be an appropriate candidate for waiver to criminal court. The 

number indicates the youngest possible age at which a juvenile accused of an offense in that category is 

subject to the presumption. “NS” means no age restriction is attached to the presumption for an offense in 

that category. Table information is as of the end of the 2009 legislative session. 

In some states, waiver is mandatory once the juvenile court judge 

determines that certain statutory criteria have been met 

Certain Certain Certain Certain 

State 

Certain 

felonies 

Capital 

crimes Murder 

person 

offenses 

property 

offenses 

drug 

offenses 

weapon 

offenses 

Connecticut 14 14 14 

Delaware 15 NS NS 16 16 

Georgia 14 14 15 

Illinois 15 

Indiana NS 16 

Kentucky 14 

Louisiana 15 15 

New Jersey 16 16 16 16 16 16 

North Carolina 13 

North Dakota 14 14 14 

Ohio 14 14 16 16 

Rhode Island 17 17 

South Carolina 14 

Virginia 14 14 

West Virginia 14 14 14 14 

Notes: An entry in the column below an offense category means that there is at least one offense in that 

category for which waiver to criminal court is mandatory. The number indicates the youngest possible age 

at which a juvenile accused of an offense in that category is subject to mandatory waiver. “NS” means no 

age restriction is specified for an offense in that category. Table information is as of the end of the 2009 legislative session. 

September 2011 5 
 

Statutory exclusion laws 

restrict juvenile courts’ 

delinquency jurisdiction 

A total of 29 states have statutes that simply exclude some juvenile-age offenders 

from the jurisdiction of their juvenile 

courts, generally by defining the term 

“child” for delinquency purposes to leave 

out youth who meet certain age/offense or 

prior record criteria. Because such youth 

cannot by definition be “delinquent children,” their cases are handled entirely in 

criminal court. 

Many states make no distinction between 

minors and adults in enforcing traffic, 

boating, hunting, fishing and similar laws 

and ordinances—and may process all violations in criminal courts. Statutory exclusion laws are different, however, in that 

they make special exceptions for offending behavior that would otherwise be the 

responsibility of juvenile delinquency 

courts. 

Murder is the offense most commonly 

singled out by statutory exclusion laws. In 

Massachusetts, Minnesota, and New Mexico, exclusion laws apply only to accused 

murderers. In all other states with exclusion statutes, murder is included along 

with other serious or violent felonies. 

Some states exclude less serious offenses, especially where older juveniles or 

those with serious delinquency histories 

are involved. Montana law excludes 

17-year-olds accused of a wide range of 

offenses, including attempted burglary, attempted arson, and attempted drug possession. Mississippi excludes all felonies 

that 17-year-olds commit as well as 

armed felonies that juveniles 13 or older 

commit. Utah excludes all felonies committed by 16-year-olds who have already 

been securely confined once, and Arizona 

excludes all felonies committed by those 

as young as 15, provided they have previously been disposed as juveniles more 

than once for felony-level offenses. 

Some states allow prosecutors to file certain categories of cases in 

juvenile or criminal court 

Any Certain Certain Certain Certain 

criminal Certain Capital person property drug weapon 

State offense felonies crimes Murder offenses offenses offenses offenses 

Arizona 14 

Arkansas 16 14 14 14 

California 14 14 14 14 14 14 

Colorado 14 14 14 14 

Dist. of Columbia 16 16 16 

Florida 16 16 NS 14 14 14 14 

Georgia NS 

Louisiana 15 15 15 15 

Michigan 14 14 14 14 14 

Montana 12 12 16 16 16 

Nebraska 16 NS 

Oklahoma 16 15 15 15 16 15 

Vermont 16 

Virginia 14 14 

Wyoming 13 14 14 14 14 

Notes: An entry in the column below an offense category means that there is at least one offense in that category 

that is subject to criminal prosecution at the option of the prosecutor. The number indicates the youngest possible 

age at which a juvenile accused of an offense in that category is subject to criminal prosecution. “NS” means no age 

restriction is specified for an offense in that category. Table information is as of the end of the 2009 legislative session. 

Many states exclude certain serious offenses from juvenile court 

jurisdiction Any Certain Certain Certain Certain 

criminal Certain Capital person property drug weapon 

State offense felonies crimes Murder offenses offenses offenses offenses 

Alabama 16 16 16 

Alaska 16 16 

Arizona 15 15 15 

California 14 14 

Delaware 15 

Florida 16 NS 16 16 

Georgia 13 13 

Idaho 14 14 14 14 

Illinois 15 13 15 15 

Indiana 16 16 16 16 16 

Iowa 16 16 16 

Louisiana 15 15 

Maryland 14 16 16 16 

Massachusetts 14 

Minnesota 16 

Mississippi 13 13 

Montana 17 17 17 17 17 

Nevada 16* NS NS 16 

New Mexico 15 

New York 13 13 14 14 

Oklahoma 13 

Oregon 15 15 

Pennsylvania NS 15 

South Carolina 16 

South Dakota 16 

Utah 16 16 

Vermont 14 14 14 

Washington 16 16 16 

Wisconsin 10 10 

* In Nevada, the exclusion applies to any juvenile with a previous felony adjudication, regardless of the current 

offense charged, if the current offense involves the use or threatened use of a firearm. 

Notes: An entry in the column below an offense category means that there is at least one offense in that category 

that is excluded from juvenile court jurisdiction. The number indicates the youngest possible age at which a juvenile 

accused of an offense in that category is subject to exclusion. “NS” means no age restriction is specified for an 

offense in that category. Table information is as of the end of the 2009 legislative session. 

6 National Report Series Bulletin 
 

In most states, criminal 

prosecution renders a 

juvenile an “adult” 

forever 

There is a special form of “automatic” 

transfer in 34 states for juveniles who 

have previously been prosecuted as 

adults. Most of these “once adult/always 

adult” laws are comprehensive, mandating 

criminal handling of all posttransfer offenses. However, Maryland, Michigan, 

Minnesota, and Texas have laws that apply 

only to posttransfer felonies, whereas 

Iowa, California, and Oregon require that 

the juveniles involved be at least 16. 

Generally, once adult/always adult laws 

apply only to juveniles who were convicted of the offenses for which they were 

originally transferred. However, this is not 

necessary in all states, at least if the original transfer was based on an individualized judicial determination. 

Many states give courts 

special flexibility in 

handling youth subject 

to transfer 

Even states with automatic or prosecutorcontrolled transfer laws often have compensating mechanisms that introduce 

some form of individualized judicial consideration into the process. 

The most straightforward of these corrective mechanisms is the reverse waiver. A 

total of 24 states have reverse waiver 

laws, which allow juveniles whose cases 

are filed in criminal court to petition to 

have them removed to juvenile court, either for trial or disposition. Criminal court 

judges deciding reverse waiver motions 

usually consult the same kinds of standards and weigh the same factors as their 

juvenile court counterparts in discretionary waiver proceedings—but the burden 

of proof may be shifted to the juvenile as 

Rhode Island NS 

Texas NS NS NS NS 

Some states give juvenile courts power to impose criminal sanctions in 

certain categories of cases 

State 

Any 

criminal 

offense 

Certain 

felonies 

Capital 

crimes Murder 

Certain 

person 

offenses 

Certain 

property 

offenses 

Certain 

drug 

offenses 

Certain 

weapon 

offenses 

Alaska 16 

Arkansas 14 NS 14 14 

Colorado NS NS 

Connecticut 14 NS 

Illinois 13 

Kansas 10 

Massachusetts 14 14 14 

Michigan NS NS NS NS NS 

Minnesota 14 

Montana 12 NS NS NS NS NS 

New Mexico 14 14 14 14 

Ohio 10 10 

Notes: An entry in the column below an offense category means that there is at least one offense in that category 

for which a juvenile may receive a blended sentence in juvenile court. The number indicates the youngest possible 

age at which a juvenile committing an offense in that category is subject to blended sentencing. “NS” indicates that, 

in at least one of the offense restrictions indicated, no minimum age is specified. Table information is as of the end 

of the 2009 legislative session. 

the moving party. Moreover, even in states 

that have a reverse waiver option, it is not 

necessarily afforded to all transferred 

youth: 10 states with reverse waiver laws 

explicitly limit its availability. 

Blended sentencing laws are also designed 

to provide a measure of individualization 

and flexibility in cases subject to transfer. 

Laws in 18 states authorize their criminal 

courts, in sentencing juveniles who have 

been tried and convicted as adults, to impose juvenile dispositions rather than 

criminal ones under some circumstances. 

Such “criminal blended sentencing” statutes can function somewhat like reverse 

waiver laws, returning transferred juveniles on an individual basis to the juvenile 

correctional system for treatment and rehabilitation. However, they often require 

that a transferred juvenile receive a suspended criminal sentence, over and above 

any juvenile disposition. In any case, here 

again, criminal blended sentencing is 

commonly authorized only for a subset of 

those youth who are criminally convicted. 

Juvenile blended sentencing laws in 14 

states are sometimes seen as providing a 

“last chance” alternative for youth who 

would otherwise be transferred. A youth 

subject to the most common form of juvenile blended sentencing is tried in juvenile court and given a juvenile disposition 

—but in combination with a suspended 

criminal sentence. Although this may be 

preferable to straight criminal handling, 

the practical effects of juvenile blended 

sentencing statutes are not well understood. Because juvenile blended sentencing thresholds are actually lower than 

transfer thresholds in most states, there is 

a possibility that such laws, instead of 

providing a mitigating alternative to transfer, are instead being used for an “inbetween” category of cases that would 

not otherwise have been transferred at all. 

September 2011 7 
 

 

 

 

State transfer laws changed radically in the closing 

decades of the 20th century 

Before 1970, transfer in 

most states was courtordered on a case-bycase basis 

Laws allowing juvenile courts to waive jurisdiction over individual youth, sending 

“hard cases” to criminal courts for adult 

prosecution, could be found in some of 

the earliest juvenile codes and have always been relatively common. Most states 

had enacted such judicial waiver laws by 

the 1950s, and they had become nearly 

universal by the 1970s. 

For the most part, these laws left transfer 

decisions to the discretion of juvenile 

court judges. Laws that made transfer 

“automatic” for certain categories—either 

by mandating waiver or by requiring that 

some charges be filed initially in criminal 

court—were rare and tended to apply only 

to rare offenses such as murder or capital 

crimes. Before 1970, only eight states had 

such laws. 

Laws giving prosecutors the option to 

charge some juveniles in criminal court 

were even rarer. Only two states—Florida 

and Georgia—had prosecutorial discretion 

laws before 1970. 

States adopted new 

transfer mechanisms in 

the 1970s and 1980s 

During the next two decades, automatic 

and prosecutor-controlled forms of transfer proliferated steadily. In the 1970s 

alone, five states enacted new prosecutorial discretion laws, and seven more 

states adopted some form of automatic 

transfer. 

By the mid-1980s, nearly all states had judicial waiver laws, 20 states had automatic transfer laws, and 7 states had 

prosecutorial discretion laws. 

“Automatic” transfer laws proliferated in the decades after 1970 ... 

Pre-1970: 

"Automatic" 

transfer laws (8) 

DC 

1985: 

DC 

"Automatic" 

transfer laws (20) 

2000: 

"Automatic" 

transfer laws (38) 

DC 

Sources: Pre-1970 and 1985 maps adapted from Feld’s The Juvenile Court Meets the Principle of the Offense: 


Legislative Changes to Juvenile Waiver Statutes and Hutzler’s Juveniles as Criminals: 1980 Statutes Analysis.
 

8 National Report Series Bulletin 
 

Prosecutorial 

discretion laws (2) 

DC 

 

Prosecutorial 

discretion laws (7) 

DC 

 

Prosecutorial 

discretion laws (15) 

DC 

... as did prosecutorial discretion laws 

Pre-1970: 

1985:
 

2000:
 

Sources: Pre-1970 and 1985 maps adapted from Feld’s The Juvenile Court Meets the Principle of the Offense: 

Legislative Changes to Juvenile Waiver Statutes and Hutzler’s Juveniles as Criminals: 1980 Statutes Analysis.
 

The surge in youth 

violence that peaked in 

1994 helped shape 

current transfer laws 

State transfer laws in their current form are 

largely the product of a period of intense 

legislative activity that began in the latter 

half of the 1980s and continued through 

the end of the 1990s. Prompted in part 

by public concern and media focus on 

the rise in violent youth crime that began 

in 1987 and peaked in 1994, legislatures 

in nearly every state revised or rewrote 

their laws to lower thresholds and broaden eligibility for transfer, shift transfer 

decisionmaking authority from judges to 

prosecutors, and replace individualized 

discretion with automatic and categorical 

mechanisms. 

Between 1986 and the end of the 1990s, 

the number of states with automatic 

transfer laws jumped from 20 to 38, and 

the number with prosecutorial discretion 

laws rose from 7 to 15. Moreover, many 

states that had automatic or prosecutorcontrolled transfer statutes expanded their 

coverage in such a way as to change their 

essential character. In Pennsylvania, for 

example, an exclusion law had been on 

the books since 1933—but had applied 

only to cases of murder. Amendments 

that took effect in 1996 transformed what 

had been a narrow and rarely used safety 

valve into a broad exclusion covering a 

long list of violent offenses. 

In recent years, transfer 

laws have changed little 

Transfer law changes since 2000 have 

been minor by comparison. No major new 

expansion has occurred. On the other 

hand, states have shown little tendency to 

reverse or even reconsider the expanded 

transfer laws already in place. Despite the 

steady decline in juvenile crime and violence rates since 1994, there has as yet 

been no discernible pendulum swing away 

from transfer. 

September 2011 9 
 

For every 1,000 petitioned delinquency cases, about 

9 are judicially waived to criminal court 

Juvenile court data 

provide a detailed 

picture of waiver in 

the U.S. 

Each year juvenile courts provide detailed 

delinquency case processing data to the 

National Juvenile Court Data Archive that 

the National Center for Juvenile Justice 

maintains. Using this information, NCJJ 

generates annual estimates of the number 

and characteristics of cases that juvenile 

court judges waive to criminal court in the 

nation as a whole. In 2007, using data 

contributed by more than 2,200 juvenile 

courts with jurisdiction over 81% of the 

nation’s juvenile population, juvenile 

courts are estimated to have waived jurisdiction in about 8,500 cases—less than 

1% of the total petitioned delinquency 

caseload. 

Nearly half of all cases judicially waived to 

criminal court in 2007 involved a person 

offense as the most serious charge. Youth 

whose cases were waived were overwhelmingly males and tended to be older 

teens. Although a substantial proportion 

(37%) of waivers involved black youth, racial disparity in the use of judicial waiver 

has diminished. In 1994, juvenile courts 

waived cases involving black youth at 1.5 

times the rate at which cases involving 

white youth were waived. By 2007, the 

disparity was reduced to 1.1 times the 

white rate. 

The use of judicial 

waiver has declined 

steeply since 1994 

The number of judicially waived cases hit 

a historic peak in 1994—when about 

13,100 cases were waived—and has 

fallen 35% since that year. There are two 

sets of causes that might account for this 

trend: 

n Decreases in juvenile violent crime 

reduced the need for waiver. Juvenile 

arrests for most crimes, and particularly for Violent Index offenses, have 

fallen almost every year since 1994. 

Because judicial waiver has historically 

served as a mechanism for removing 

serious and violent offenders from a 

juvenile system that was seen as illequipped to accommodate them, a 

reduction in serious and violent crime 

should naturally result in some reduction in the volume of waivers. 

n New transfer mechanisms displaced 

waiver. The nationwide proliferation 

and expansion of nontraditional transfer mechanisms also may have contributed to the reduction in waivers. 

In states with prosecutorial discretion 

or statutory exclusion laws, cases 

The likelihood of judicial waiver among petitioned delinquency cases 

was lower in 2007 than in 1994 for all offense categories and demographic groups 

Profile of judicially waived Percentage of petitioned cases 

delinquency cases judicially waived to criminal court 

Offense/demographic 1994 2007 1994 2007 

Total cases waived 13,100 8,500 13,100 8,500 

Most serious offense 100% 100% 

Person 42 48 2.6% 1.7% 

Property 37 27 1.1 0.7 

Drugs 12 13 2.1 1.0 

Public order 9 11 0.6 0.3 

Gender 100% 100% 

Male 95 90 1.7 1.1 

Female 5 10 0.4 0.4 

Age at referral 100% 100% 

15 or younger 13 12 0.3 0.2 

16 or older 87 88 3.0 1.7 

Race/ethnicity 100% 100% 

White 53 59 1.2 0.9 

Black 44 37 1.8 1.0 

10 National Report Series Bulletin 

involving juvenile-age offenders can 

originate in criminal courts, bypassing 

the juvenile courts altogether. During 

the 1990s, law revisions in most states 

exposed more youth to these forms of 

transfer. Because these new laws were 

generally operating already by the mid1990s, many juveniles who would previously have been candidates for waiver were subject to nonwaiver transfer 

instead. Overall transfer volume after 

1994 could have stayed the same—or 

even continued to rise—even as waiver 

volume declined. 

It is probable that both of these causes 

were at work and that declining waiver 

numbers reflect both overall juvenile 

crime trends and the diminished importance of judicial waiver relative to other 

transfer mechanisms. 

Note: These data on cases judicially waived from juvenile court to criminal court do not include cases filed 

directly in criminal court via other transfer mechanisms. 

Source: Authors’ analysis of Puzzanchera et al.’s Juvenile Court Statistics 2007. 
Juvenile arrest and judicial waiver trends for serious violent offenses had similar patterns over the past two 

decades 

Number of arrests 

160,000 

140,000 

120,000 

100,000 

Juvenile Violent Crime Index arrests 80,000 

60,000 

40,000 

20,000 

0 

1985 1987 1989 1991 1993 1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005 2007 

Number of cases 

5,000 

4,500 

4,000 

3,500 

3,000 

2,500 

2,000 

1,500 Judicially waived Violent Crime Index cases 1,000 

500 

0 

1985 1987 1989 1991 1993 1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005 2007 

* The Violent Crime Index includes the offenses of murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault. 

n

n

From the mid-1980s to the peak in 1994, the number of juvenile arrests for Violent Crime Index offenses nearly doubled and then declined substantially through 

2004 (down 39%). This decade-long decline was followed by an 11% increase over the next 2 years, and then a 4% decline between 2006 and 2007. 

Similarly, the number of cases judicially waived for Violent Crime Index offenses tripled between 1988 and 1994 and then declined 57% through 2003. Between 

2003 and 2007, the number of cases waived increased 47%. 

Sources: Authors’ analyses of FBI unpublished reports for 1980 through 1997, the FBI’s Crime in the United States reports for 1998 through 2007, and Sickmund et al.’s Easy 

Access to Juvenile Court Statistics 2007. 

September 2011 11 
 

National information on juvenile cases filed directly 

in criminal court is fragmentary 

No national data set 

tracks cases that bypass 

juvenile courts 

No data source exists that is comparable 

to the National Juvenile Court Data Archive for nonwaiver cases—those in 

which juveniles are processed in criminal 

court as a result of statutory exclusions or 

prosecutors’ discretionary choices. Because they are filed in criminal court like 

other cases, involve defendants who are 

“adults” at least for criminal handling purposes, and represent an insignificant proportion of the criminal justice system’s 

overall caseload, juvenile cases originating 

in criminal court can be very difficult to 

isolate statistically. Legal, definitional, and 

reporting variations from state to state 

also make it hard to aggregate what information is available. Although several federally sponsored criminal processing data 

collection efforts have shed some light on 

cases involving juvenile-age offenders, to 

date none has been designed to yield reliable national estimates of the overall volume and characteristics of these cases. 

As a result, at the national level, a big part 

of the picture of transfer is missing. 

BJS research provides 

glimpses of transfer 

case characteristics 

Available national statistics on criminal 

processing of juveniles come primarily 

from a handful of large-scale data gathering efforts that the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) sponsors. Both the 

State Court Processing Statistics (SCPS) 

program and the National Judicial Reporting Program (NJRP) periodically collect 

detailed information on felony cases in 

state criminal courts. Special analyses of 

data from both programs have yielded information on the relatively small subset of 

felony cases that involve youth. The BJSsponsored National Survey of Prosecutors

(NSP) has likewise been used to collect 

basic information on criminal prosecution 

of juveniles in the states. 

The SCPS collects demographic, offense, 

processing, and sentencing information 

on felony defendants from a sample of 40 

large urban jurisdictions that are representative of the nation’s 75 largest counties. For the 1998 SCPS, BJS used an 

oversampling technique to capture sufficient information on criminally processed 

juveniles to support a special analysis of 

this subgroup. Although it did not produce a sample that was representative of 

the nation as a whole—and so cannot tell 

us about juveniles charged in criminal 

court with misdemeanors rather than felonies, or those processed outside the 

nation’s 75 largest counties—the study 

did provide useful insight into urban 

transfer cases in which serious offenses 

are alleged: 

n Volume. About 7,100 juveniles were 

criminally processed for felonies in the 

40 sampled counties during 1998. 

Transfer mechanism. Less than a 

quarter of the cases reached criminal 

court via judicial waiver. More common were exclusion cases (42%) and 

prosecutorial direct files (35%). 

Charges. The most serious charge at 

arrest in about half of the cases was 

either robbery (31%) or assault (21%). 

The next most common charges were 

drug trafficking (11%) and burglary (8%). 

Demographics. Defendants were overwhelmingly male (96%) and predominantly black (62%). 

n

n

n

The NJRP collects information on felony 

sentences in state courts. The 1996 NJRP 

collected data from 344 counties, generating a subsample of juvenile-age felony 

cases that, while not statistically representative of all transferred juveniles, was 

large enough to enable researchers to explore ways in which juvenile cases differed from those of other convicted 

felons. 

Compared with adult felons, the special 

analysis found, transferred juveniles were 

more likely than their adult counterparts 

to be male (96% versus 84%) and black 

(55% versus 45%). Juveniles were more 

likely than adults to have a person offense 

as their most serious offense at conviction (53% versus 17%) and far less likely 

to have a drug offense (11% versus 37%). 

The majority of juvenile felony 

defendants in the 75 largest 

counties reached criminal court 

through nonjudicial transfer 

Percentage of 

juvenile felony 

Demographic defendants 

Volume 7,100 

Transfer mechanism 100.0% 

Judicial waiver 23.7 

Prosecutor direct file 34.7 

Statutory exclusion 41.6 

Most serious charge 100.0% 

Violent offense 63.5 

Property offense 17.7 

Drug offense 15.1 

Public order offense 3.5 

Gender 100.0% 

Male 95.8 

Female 4.2 

Race 100.0% 

White 19.9 

Black 62.2 

Other 1.8 

Hispanic 16.2 

Source: Authors’ adaptation of Rainville and 

Smith’s Juvenile Felony Defendants in Criminal 

Courts: Survey of 40 Counties, 1998. 

12 National Report Series Bulletin 
Most prosecutors’ 

offices report trying 

juveniles as adults 

The NSP is a regular BJS-sponsored survey of chief prosecutors who try felony 

cases in state courts of general jurisdiction. Its primary purpose is to collect 

basic information on office staffing, funding, caseloads, etc., but several recent 

surveys have asked respondents whether 

their offices proceeded against juveniles 

in criminal court and, if so, how many 

such cases were prosecuted in the 12 

months preceding the survey. The 2005 

NSP, which was a survey of a nationally 

representative sample of 310 prosecutors, 

found that about two-thirds of prosecutors’ offices tried juveniles in criminal 

court. On the basis of the 2005 responses, it was estimated that about 23,000 

juvenile cases had been criminally prosecuted nationwide during the 12 months 

preceding the survey. 

Although the NSP information is useful as 

a starting point in assessing the criminal 

processing of youth, it must be handled 

with a certain amount of caution. Respondents were asked to give either the actual 

number of criminally prosecuted juvenile 

cases over the preceding 12-month period 

or their best estimates, but there is no 

way of knowing the basis for any estimates provided. In any case, the information elicited gives only an aggregate case 

total and does not contribute to understanding the characteristics or processing 

of those cases. 

Transferred juvenile felons were far more likely than adult felons to be 

convicted of violent offenses 

Transferred 

Demographic juvenile felons Adult felons 

Most serious felony charge 100% 100% 

Violent offense 53 17 

Property offense 27 30 

Drug offense 11 37 

Weapons offense 3 3 

Other offense 6 14 

Gender 100% 100% 

Male 96 84 

Female 4 16 

Race 100% 100% 

White 43 53% 

Black 55 45 

Other 2 2 

Source: Authors’ adaptation of Levin, Langan, and Brown’s State Court Sentencing of Convicted Felons, 1996. 

A new BJS survey will help fill information gaps 

on criminal processing of juveniles nationally 

BJS recently awarded a new national 

survey effort to Westat and subcontractor, the National Center for Juvenile 

Justice, with the goal of generating accurate and reliable case processing statistics for juveniles charged as adults. 

The Survey of Juveniles Charged as 

Adults in Criminal Courts will be the 

first effort of its kind that focuses solely on generating national data on youth 

in criminal court; it is likely to contribute substantially to the knowledge regarding the criminal processing of 

youth. Drawing from a sample of felony 

and misdemeanor cases filed against 

youth in criminal courts who were 

younger than 18—including both transfer cases and cases involving youth 

who are considered adults under their 

states’ jurisdictional age laws—the survey will gather information on offender 

demographics and offense histories, arrest and arraignment charges, transfer 

mechanisms, and case processing and 

disposition. 

September 2011 13 
 

Most states do not track and account for all of their 

juvenile transfer cases 

The Transfer Data 

Project documented 

state transfer reporting 

practices 

In the absence of any one data source that 

would make it possible to arrive at an accurate estimate of the number of juvenileage offenders prosecuted in criminal 

courts nationwide, it is necessary to look 

instead to a variety of state sources. Unfortunately, information from these scattered sources is fragmentary, hard to find, 

and harder to analyze. 

In an effort to document reliable sources 

of state-level data on juvenile transfers, 

identify crucial gaps in available information on transferred youth and, if possible, 

fill in the national data picture on transfer, 

NCJJ conducted a Transfer Data Project in 

2009. The project, a component of the 

OJJDP-funded National Juvenile Justice 

Data Analysis Project, began with a structured search for any published or online 

reports that official sources regularly issued within the 1995–2009 time frame 

and containing any state-level statistics on 

criminal prosecution of juveniles. Following this initial search, project staff conducted a snowball survey of likely data 

keepers in individual states, including 

contributors to the National Juvenile Court 

Data Archive, asking for further information, clarification, and leads. In all, 63 

officials were contacted via e-mail and 

telephone followups, including representatives of state juvenile justice agencies, 

state judicial administrative offices, state 

prosecutors’ agencies, and state statistical 

analysis centers. Most state respondents 

referred NCJJ staff to published reports 

containing pertinent statistics, redirected 

queries to other state officials, or confirmed that the information sought was 

not collected at the state level. However, 

officials in nine states were able to supply 

NCJJ directly with transfer numbers that 

resided in state information systems or 

had otherwise been collected at the state 

level but were not made available in public 

reports. 

These data were analyzed along with 

state-published statistics on transfer, 

yielding the most complete picture currently available of juvenile transfer and 

transfer-reporting practice in the states. 

In addition to being summarized in this 

report, project findings regarding state 

transfer and reporting practice will be 

incorporated into the online summary of 

state transfer laws found on OJJDP’s 

Statistical Briefing Book Web site, http:// 

ojjdp.gov/ojstatbb/structure_process/ 

faqs.asp. 

Only 13 states publicly 

report all transfers 

From the information that the Transfer 

Data Project assembled, it appears that 

only a small minority of states currently 

track and report comprehensive information regarding criminal prosecutions of juveniles. Indeed, only 13 states were 

identified as publicly reporting even the 

total number of their transfers, including 

cases of juveniles who reach criminal 

courts as a result of statutory exclusions 

or prosecutors’ discretionary choices as 

well as judicial waiver decisions. States 

that publish information on the offense 

profiles or demo-graphic characteristics of 

these youth, or provide details regarding 

their processing or sentencing, are even 

rarer. 

With respect to their reporting of the 

number of transfers only, states fall into 

four categories: 

n Publicly report all transfers (13 

states). A few of these states report 

only a bare annual total—the number 

of criminally prosecuted youth, the 

number of criminal cases involving 

youth, or both—but most report 

something more, such as age, race, or 

gender information on transferred 

youth, how they reached criminal 

court, what their offenses were, or how 

their cases were resolved. 

n Publicly report some but not all transfers (10 states). Commonly, these 

states report the number of cases that 

are sent to criminal court, following 

waiver proceedings in juvenile court, 

but not the number that are filed 

directly in criminal court. 

n Contribute data to the National 

Juvenile Court Data Archive but do 

not otherwise report transfers (14 

states). States that contribute annual 

juvenile case processing data to the 

Archive that NCJJ maintains are, in 

effect, reporting information on judicially waived cases, although not to the 

public. NCJJ uses these data to prepare national waiver estimates but 

does not publish individual state waiver totals. Accordingly, Archive reporting does not help the field and members of the public understand how 

individual states’ waiver laws are operating in practice. 

n Do not report transfers at all (14 

states). These states do not contribute 

data on waived cases to the Archive, 

and NCJJ was unable to locate any 

other official reports containing their 

waiver and/or transfer totals. However, 

officials in five of these states responded to NCJJ’s information requests by 

sharing recent data on transfer cases 

—which suggests that they already 

collect the pertinent information at the 

state level or, at least, are capable of 

collecting it. 

14 National Report Series Bulletin 
About half of the states publicly report at least some information 

regarding criminal prosecutions of juveniles 

State 

Publicly report 

all transfers 

Publicly report 

some but not 

all transfers 

Contribute to the 

National Juvenile 

Court Data Archive 

but do not otherwise 

report transfers 

Do not report 

transfers at all 

Number of states 13 10 14 14 

Alabama 

Alaska 

n

n

Arizona n

Arkansas n

California 

Colorado 

n

n

Connecticut n

Delaware n

District of Columbia 

Florida n

n

Georgia n

Hawaii n

Idaho 

Illinois n

n

Indiana n

Iowa n

Kansas 

Kentucky 

n

n

Louisiana n

Maine n

Maryland 

Massachusetts 

n

n

Michigan n

Minnesota n

Mississippi 

Missouri n

n

Montana n

Nebraska n

Nevada 

New Hampshire 

n

n

New Jersey n

New Mexico n

New York 

North Carolina n

n

North Dakota n

Ohio n

Oklahoma 

Oregon n

n

Pennsylvania n

Rhode Island n

South Carolina 

South Dakota 

n

n

Tennessee n

Texas n

Utah 

Vermont 

n

n

Virginia n

Washington n

West Virginia 

Wisconsin 

Wyoming 

n

n

n

Note: Table information is as of 2009. 

States are more likely to 

track judicial waiver 

cases than other kinds 

of transfers 

Relatively speaking, states do a better job 

of tracking cases that originate in juvenile 

court and are transferred to criminal court 

on an individualized basis. Transfer cases 

that bypass juvenile courts altogether are 

more commonly “lost” in states’ general 

criminal processing statistics: 

n	 Of the 46 states that have judicial 

waiver laws, 20 publicly report annual 

waiver totals and 13 more report waivers to the National Juvenile Court Data 

Archive. 

n	 By contrast, of the 29 states with statutory exclusion laws requiring criminal 

prosecution of some juveniles, only 2 

publicly report the total number of 

excluded cases, and 5 others report a 

combined total of all criminally prosecuted cases, without specifying the 

transfer mechanism employed. 

n	 Of the 15 states that have prosecutorial 

discretion laws, only 1 publicly reports 

the total number of cases filed in criminal court at prosecutors’ discretion, 

and 4 others report an undifferentiated 

total of all criminally prosecuted cases. 

The scarcity of information on cases involving youth prosecuted under exclusion 

and prosecutorial discretion laws presents 

a serious problem for those wishing to 

assess the workings, effectiveness, and 

overall impact of these laws. Even the few 

states that provide a count of excluded or 

direct-filed cases seldom report the kind 

of demographic, offense, sentencing, and 

other detail that is needed to inform judgments about whether laws entrusting 

transfer decisions to prosecutors rather 

than judges are being applied fairly and 

consistently. It is not clear whether these 

laws are targeting the most serious offenders and resulting in the kinds of sanctions lawmakers intended. And if these 

September 2011 15 
 

laws are operating as intended in one 

state, are they doing so in all the states 

that rely on such provisions? 

The absence of information on cases 

transferred at prosecutors’ discretion is 

particularly troubling. Some prosecutorial 

discretion laws are very broadly written. 

For example, in Nebraska and Vermont— 

neither of which currently publish annual 

transfer statistics—any youth who is at 

least 16 may be prosecuted as an adult at 

the prosecutor’s option, regardless of the 

offense alleged. However, even states that 

limit prosecutors’ discretionary authority 

to cases involving serious offenses do not 

thereby eliminate the possibility of unfair 

or inappropriate use of the authority. 

Because statutory exclusion laws apply 

automatically to all juveniles who come 

within their provisions, they present less 

danger of inconsistent, unfair, or inappropriate enforcement. However, even apparently neutral laws may, in practice, fall 

more heavily on certain groups. Again, 

many exclusion laws apply to very broadly 

defined categories—all felony-grade 

offenses, for example, or all offenses in 

high-volume categories like assaults, robberies, burglaries, and drug offenses— 

that may, in practice, cover a variety of 

actual crime scenarios, from the very serious to the relatively trivial. Whether or not 

exclusion laws are working as intended— 

increasing the likelihood of prosecution, 

conviction, incarceration, and long sentences, and serving as a deterrent—is a 

question of fact that cannot be answered 

without more information than is generally available at present. Additional data are 

also needed to determine whether exclusion laws (1) impact certain groups more 

than others, (2) impact large numbers of 

youth whose offense profiles may be less 

serious than those originally envisioned, 

or (3) work differently from one state to 

another. 

Few states publicly report data on cases transferred by statutory 

exclusion or prosecutorial discretion 

l

State 

Has 

judicial 

waiver 

Reports 

judicial 

waiver to 

public 

Reports 

judicial 

waiver to 

Archive 

Has prosecutorial 

discretion 

Reports 

statutory 

discretion 

to public 

Has 

statutory 

exclusion 

Reports 

statutory 

exclusion 

to public 

Number of states 46 20 28 15 5 29 7 

Alabama n n n

Alaska n n n

Arizona n n n n k n k

Arkansas n n

California n n n n k n k

Colorado n n

Connecticut n n

Delaware n n

District of Columbia n n n

Florida n n n n k n k

Georgia n n n n

Hawaii n n

Idaho n n

Illinois n l n l

Indiana n n

Iowa n n n

Kansas n n

Kentucky n

Louisiana n n n

Maine n

Maryland n n n n

Massachusetts n

Michigan n n n n n

Minnesota n n n

Mississippi n n n

Missouri n n n

Montana n k n k

Nebraska n

Nevada n n n

New Hampshire n

New Jersey n n

New Mexico n

New York n

North Carolina n n

North Dakota n

Ohio n n n

Oklahoma n n n n n

Oregon n k n n k

Pennsylvania n n n n

Rhode Island n n

South Carolina n n n n

South Dakota n n

Tennessee n n n

Texas n n n

Utah n n n

Vermont n n n

Virginia n n n

Washington n n n n n

West Virginia n n n

Wisconsin n n n

Wyoming n n

Partial reporting (not all jurisdictions). 

k Combined total of transfer mechanisms (not separated out). 

Note: Table information is as of 2009. 

16 National Report Series Bulletin 
There are wide variations in the ways states 

document juvenile transfers 

Only a few states report 

significant details about 

transfer cases 

The Transfer Data Project’s search for official state data on youth prosecuted as 

adults uncovered a broad range of approaches to reporting on transfers, particularly in terms of the completeness and 

level of detail of the information reported. 

Arizona, California, and Florida can be regarded as exemplary states when it 

comes to collecting and regularly reporting detailed statistics on juveniles tried as 

adults. Although they do not report exactly the same things in the same ways, they 

do provide the field and the public with 

most of the basic information needed to 

assess the workings and impact of their 

juvenile transfer laws. Most other states— 

even among those that regularly track and 

report their annual juvenile transfer totals—report far fewer details regarding 

those cases. 

Although there is no one “right” way to 

report information on juvenile transfer 

cases, reasonably complete documentation could be expected to cover each of 

the following general categories: 

n	 Total volume. As noted previously, 

only 13 states report the total number 

of cases in which juvenile-age offenders are prosecuted in criminal court, 

the total number of juveniles prosecuted, or both. 

n	 Pathways. Of these 13 states, 5 provide information showing how transfer 

cases reached the criminal system— 

whether by way of judicial waiver, 

prosecutors’ discretionary decisions, 

or as a result of statutory exclusions. 

In six others, judicial waiver was the 

only transfer mechanism available. 

n	 Demographics. Eight of the 13 states 

provide age, race/ethnicity, gender, or 

other demographic information on 

criminally prosecuted youth. 

n	 Offenses. Only three of these states 

provide information on the offenses for 

which youth were transferred. 

n	 Processing outcomes. Only one of 

these states—California—reports 

information on criminal court handling 

and disposition of transfer cases. 

Offense and processing information on transfers is rarely reported 

State Total volume Pathways Demographics Offenses 

Processing 

outcomes 

Number of states 13 11 8 3 1 

Arizona n n n n

California n n n n n

Florida n n n n

Kansas n k

Michigan n n

Missouri n k n

Montana n n

North Carolina n k

Ohio n k n

Oregon n n

Tennessee n k n

Texas n k

Washington n n

k Waiver-only states. 

Note: Table information is as of 2009. 

September 2011 17 

Available data show 

dramatic differences in 

states’ transfer rates 

Although the national picture is far from 

complete, rough comparisons among the 

subset of states that do track total transfers make it clear that there are striking 

variations in individual states’ propensity 

to try juveniles as adults, even when differences in juvenile population sizes are 

taken into account. 

Some state-to-state differences in per 

capita transfer rates are undoubtedly 

linked to differences in jurisdictional age 

boundaries. The lowest transfer rates 

among the 13 full-reporting states tend to 

be found in the states that set lower age 

boundaries for criminal court jurisdiction 

(Michigan, Missouri, North Carolina, and 

Texas). In these states, 17-year-olds (or in 

the case of North Carolina, 16- and 

17-year-olds) must be taken out of the 

mix: They cannot be “transferred” for 

criminal prosecution because they are already within the original jurisdiction of the 

criminal courts. That leaves a transfereligible population that is younger and 

statistically less likely to be involved in serious offending. (Of course, if one were 

simply measuring the extent to which 

states criminally prosecute youth who are 

younger than 18, these states’ rates would 

be among the highest.) 

Differences in state transfer rates may 

also be explained, in part, by broad differences in the way transfer mechanisms 
 

Convictions 

3,407 

(74%) 

Acquitted 

23 

(0.5%) 

Dismissal/ 

diversion 

1,112 

(24%) 

Adult 

dispositions 

(2003–2008) 

4,604 

Certified to 

juvenile court 

62 

(1%) 

Prison/Youth 

Authority sentence 

1,455 

(43%) 

Probation 

296 

(9%) 

Probation with jail 

1,136 

(33%) 

Jail 

68 

(2%) 

Fine 

333 

(10%) 

Other/not reported 

110 

(3%) 

work. In the six reporting states (Kansas, 

Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, and Texas) that have only judicial 

waiver laws—even including those in 

which some waivers are mandated—average transfer rates are generally lower than 

those in the remaining seven states, 

which have statutory exclusion laws, 

prosecutorial discretion laws, or both. 

However, it can be difficult to account for 

state transfer rate variations on the basis 

of legal structures alone. For instance, 

Tennessee appears to transfer juveniles 

far more often than Kansas (although 

both are waiver-only states) and, if anything, Tennessee law imposes more restrictions on the juvenile court’s power to 

waive jurisdiction. 

Average annual transfer rate,* 2003–2008: 

Florida 164.7 

Oregon 95.6 

Arizona 83.7 

Tennessee 42.6 

Montana 41.6 

Kansas 25.3 

Washington 21.2 

Missouri 20.9 

California 20.6 

Ohio 20.4 

Michigan 12.4 

Texas 8.6 

North Carolina 7.1 

*Cases per 100,000 juveniles ages 10 to upper age of 

juvenile court jurisdiction. 

Notes: Table is intended for rough comparison only. 

Unit of count varies from state to state. Some states 

report by fiscal year, some by calendar year. Transfer 

volume was unavailable for Montana in 2005, 2006, 

and 2008 and for Washington in 2008. 

Detailed transfer 

reporting in some 

states makes indepth 

comparison possible 

Because they document their juvenile 

transfers more thoroughly than other 

states, data from Arizona, California, and 

Florida provide a considerably more nuanced picture of transfer in practice. Even 

though all three are populous “sunbelt” 

states with large urban centers, significant 

crime, and a broadly similar array of 

transfer laws, official reports from the 

three states make clear that they have 

markedly different approaches to transfer. 

Overall rates. The three states differ dramatically in their per capita transfer 

rates—with Florida being the clear outlier. 

Over the period from 2003 through 2008, 

Florida transferred youth at about twice 

the rate of Arizona and about eight times 

the rate of California. (In fact, Florida’s 

rate was about five times the average 

transfer rate in the other 12 states that 

publicly reported total transfers during 

this period.) One part of the explanation is 

undoubtedly Florida’s expansive prosecutorial discretion law, which permits prosecutors to opt for criminal handling of, 

among others, all 16- and 17-year-olds 

accused of felonies. (Only Nebraska 

and Vermont give prosecutors more 

discretionary authority.) However, both 

Arizona and California prosecutors also 

have broad prosecutorial discretion provisions, suggesting that aggressive use of 

prosecutorial discretion in Florida may be 

a factor as well. 

Transfer pathways. Although Florida has 

an extremely broad and flexible judicial 

waiver provision—authorizing waiver for 

any offense, providing the juvenile was at 

least 14 at the time of commission—judicial waiver is a relatively insignificant 

transfer mechanism there, accounting for 

only about 4% of total transfers from 

2003 to 2008. In Arizona, 14% of transfers came by way of waiver, but waivers 

steadily declined over that period, both in 

absolute terms and as a proportion of 

total transfers. 

In California, by contrast, about 40% 

of transfers from 2003 to 2008 were 

California reports detailed case-processing outcomes for transferred youth 

Source: Authors’ analyses of California Office of the Attorney General reports available online. 

18 National Report Series Bulletin 
waivers. California prosecutors may make 

a motion for “fitness hearings” for any 

16- or 17-year-old, regardless of the offense alleged, and for younger offenders 

accused of more serious offenses. Moreover, where youth are accused of serious 

offenses or have serious prior records, 

they may be presumed to be unfit for juvenile court handling and must affirmatively prove otherwise. Perhaps because 

this shifting of the burden of proof makes 

the fitness hearing route easier for prosecutors, it is frequently used and is frequently successful: 71% of all fitness 

hearings from 2003 to 2008 resulted in 

remand to criminal court. 

Demographics. In 2008, a majority of 

transfers involved youth who were at least 

age 17 in Florida (65%), Arizona (55%), 

and California (56%), but the racial and 

ethnic mix was quite different. In Florida, 

most transferred youth in 2008 were 

black (54%), whereas whites (29%) and 

Hispanics (12%) were considerably underrepresented. By contrast, transfers 

were predominantly Hispanic in Arizona 

(57%) and California (56%). 

Offenses. In all three states, the vast majority of transfers involved felonies rather 

than misdemeanors. In 2008, 98% of reported transfers in Arizona, 89% in California, and 94% in Florida involved 

felonies, but transfer offenses in the three 

states differed substantially. In Florida, 

only 44% of reported 2008 transfers involved person offenses, whereas 31% 

involved property offenses and 11% involved drug offenses. Transfers were far 

more likely to involve person offenses in 

Arizona (60%) and California (65%). 

Transfers for property offenses were less 

common in those states (25% in Arizona, 

15% in California), as were transfers for 

drug offenses (6% in Arizona, 4% in California). 

Case outcomes. As noted above, no comparison is possible among the three states 

with regard to the crucial issue of what 

happens to transferred youth—only California reports processing outcomes in 

transfer cases. However, because processing outcome information on transfer 

cases is so rare, it is worth noting that, 

over the period from 2003 through 2008, 

about three-quarters of cases involving juveniles disposed in California’s criminal 

courts resulted in convictions. Following 

conviction, youth were sentenced to some 

form of incarceration (in a prison, jail, or 

California Youth Authority facility) in almost 8 of 10 cases. 

September 2011 19 
 

Nearly 14,000 transfers can be accounted for in 

2007—but most states are missing from that total 

The size of the gaps in 

available transfer data 

can be broadly estimated 

On the basis of juvenile court case processing data reported to the National 

Juvenile Court Data Archive, 8,500 judicial 

waivers are estimated to have occurred 

nationwide in 2007. The six states that 

track and report all of their nonjudicial 

transfers as well—Arizona, California, 

Florida, Michigan, Oregon, and Washington—reported an additional 5,096 nonjudicial transfer cases in 2007. Unpublished 

state-level information that Idaho provided 

to the Transfer Data Project contributed 

some 20 additional nonjudicial transfers 

to the 2007 total of 13,616. 

A great deal is missing from this total, 

however—including nonjudicial transfers 

in the 29 other states that have statutory 

exclusion or prosecutorial discretion laws 

but do not publish statistics on criminal 

prosecution of juveniles and were not able 

to provide the Transfer Data Project with 

data from which 2007 totals could be derived. These 29 states fall into three basic 

groups. 

States with extremely narrow nonjudicial 

transfer laws. In five of these states, 

transfer by means other than judicial 

waiver must be a very rare event. Massachusetts, Minnesota, and New Mexico 

have statutory exclusion provisions, but 

they apply only to juveniles accused of 

homicide. Utah has an exclusion law that, 

apart from homicide cases, covers only 

felonies that inmates in secure custody 

commit. Wisconsin’s exclusion applies 

only to homicides and cases involving assaults committed against corrections, 

probation, and parole personnel. Even 

without knowing more, the authors can 

predict that the contribution to the nation’s nonjudicial transfer total from these 

five states would be insignificant. 

States with extremely broad nonjudicial 

transfer laws. At the other extreme, laws 

in two states—Nebraska and Vermont— 

authorize criminal prosecution of any 16- 

or 17-year-old youth, at the prosecutor’s 

option, regardless of the offense alleged. 

In a third state—Wyoming—prosecutors 

have discretion to prosecute all misdemeanants in criminal court, as long as 

they are at least 13 years old. Laws of this 

exceptionally broad type are likely to generate large numbers of transfer cases, 

even though the states involved are not 

populous ones. In fact, criminal court data 

from Vermont, analyzed by NCJJ as part 

of a one-time study for that state’s Agency 

for Human Services, found nearly 1,000 

cases in which 16- and 17-year-old Vermont youth were handled as adults in a 

single year—a contribution to the nation’s 

transfer total that would be comparable to 

California’s published total in a typical 

year. 

Other states. In the remaining 21 states, 

nonjudicial transfer provisions are much 

broader in scope than those in the first 

group but not so broad as those in the 

second. Youth are subject to nonjudicial 

transfer in these states for a range of offenses or offense types, all far more common than homicide. Nevertheless, they 

must meet some minimum threshold of 

offense seriousness. Some states within 

this middle group list specific offenses 

qualifying for nonjudicial transfer. In others, nonjudicial transfer laws do not merely apply to named offenses but also to 

felony offenses generally, or at least to felonies of a particular grade or grades. 

Among states that do not track and report nonjudicial transfers, the 

number unaccounted for depends on the scope of each state’s laws 

State 

Nonjudicial transfer 

only for extremely 

rare offenses 

Nonjudicial 

transfer for 

listed offenses 

Nonjudicial transfer 

for all felonies or 

range of felonies 

Prosecutorial 

discretion limited 

solely by age 

Number of states 5 16 5 3 

Alabama
 n

Alaska
 n

Arkansas n

Colorado n

Delaware n

Dist. Of Columbia n

Georgia n

Illinois n

Indiana n

Iowa n

Louisiana n

Maryland 

Massachusetts n

n

Minnesota n

Mississippi n

Montana n

Nebraska n

Nevada n

New Mexico n

New York n

Oklahoma n

Pennsylvania n

South Carolina n

South Dakota n

Utah n

Vermont n

Virginia n

Wisconsin n

Wyoming n

Note: Table information is as of the end of the 2009 legislative session. 

20 National Report Series Bulletin 
Jurisdictional age laws may “transfer” as many as 

175,000 additional youth to criminal court 

In13 states, youth 

become criminally 

responsible before their 

18th birthdays 

Although it is important to have an idea of 

the number and characteristics of juveniles who are prosecuted as adults under 

state transfer laws, it should be remembered that most criminal prosecutions involving youth younger than 18 occur in 

states that limit the delinquency jurisdiction of their juvenile courts so as to exclude all 17-year-olds—or even all 

16-year-olds—accused of crimes. States 

have always been free to define the respective jurisdictions of their juvenile and 

criminal courts. Nothing compels them to 

draw the line between “juvenile” and 

“adult” at the 18th birthday; in fact, there 

are 13 states that hold youth criminally 

responsible beginning with the 16th or 

17th birthday. The number of youth 

younger than 18 prosecuted as adults in 

these states—not as exceptions, but as a 

matter of routine—can only be estimated. 

But it almost certainly dwarfs the number 

that reach criminal courts as a result of 

transfer laws in the nation as a whole. 

Upper age of original juvenile 

court jurisdiction, 2007 

Age State 

15 Connecticut,* New York, North 

Carolina 

16 Georgia, Illinois,** Louisiana, 

Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, 

New Hampshire, South Carolina, 

Texas, Wisconsin 

17 Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, 

Arkansas, California, Colorado, 

Delaware, District of Columbia, 

Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, 

Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, 

Maryland, Minnesota, Mississippi, 

Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, 

New Jersey, New Mexico, North 

Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, 

Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South 

Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, 

Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, 

Wyoming 

* Upper age of original jurisdiction is being 

raised from 15 to 17: the transition will be 

complete by 2012. 

** Upper age rose from 16 to 17 for those 

accused of misdemeanors only, effective 2010. 

A total of 2.2 million 

youth younger than 18 

are subject to routine 

criminal processing 

The authors do not know the number of 

youth prosecuted as adults in states that 

set the age of adult responsibility for 

crime at 16 or 17 for many of the same 

reasons that they do not know the number of youth prosecuted as adults under 

transfer laws. However, rough estimates 

are possible, based on population data 

and what is known about the offending 

behavior of 16- and 17-year-old youth. 

In 2007, there were a total of 2.2 million 

16- and 17-year-olds who were considered criminally responsible “adults” under 

the jurisdictional age laws of the states in 

which they resided. If one applies agespecific national delinquency case rates 

(the number of delinquency referrals per 

1,000 juveniles) to this population group 

—and assume that they would have been 

referred to criminal court at the same 

rates that 16- and 17-year-olds are referred to juvenile courts in other states 

—then as many as 247,000 offenders 

younger than age 18 would have been referred to the criminal courts in 2007. 

To determine the number of youth who 

are actually criminally prosecuted in the 

13 states, delinquency case rates may be 

less pertinent than delinquency petition 

rates—that is, the age-specific rates at 

which youth are formally processed in 

(rather than merely referred to) juvenile 

court. On the basis of age-specific delinquency petition rates, one would expect 

about 145,000 youth younger than 18 to 

have been criminally prosecuted in the 13 

states in 2007. 

It is possible to refine this rough estimate 

somewhat further. To account for the fact 

that different groups are formally processed in court at different rates, one can 

control not only for age but also for sex 

and race. If one applies age-, sex-, and 

race-specific petition rates to the population involved, an estimated 159,000 youth 

who were younger than 18 were prosecuted in criminal courts in the 13 states in 

2007. 

One can also take population density into 

account. The estimation procedure that 

NCJJ used to produce national data on juvenile court processing characteristics 

uses the county as the unit of aggregation. As part of the multiple-imputation 

and weighting process, all U.S. counties 

are placed into one of four strata on the 

basis of the size of their youth population, 

and specific rates are developed for age/ 

race groups within each of the strata. If 

we apply similar age-, race-, and strataspecific petition rates to this population, 

we arrive at an estimate of 175,000 cases 

involving 16- or 17-year-olds tried in 

criminal court in the 13 states in 2007. 

It should be noted again, however, that all 

of these estimates are based on an assumption that is at least questionable: that 

juvenile and criminal courts would respond in the same way to similar offending behavior. In fact, it is possible that 

some conduct that would be considered 

serious enough to merit referral to and 

formal processing in juvenile court—such 

as vandalism, trespassing, minor thefts, 

and low-level public order offenses— 

would not receive similar handling in 

criminal court. 

September 2011 21 
 

Juveniles in most states can be jailed while awaiting 

trial in criminal court 

Contact with adult 

inmates is sometimes 

but not always restricted 

Depending on state law, local practice, 

and such factors as the age of the accused, juveniles who are confined while 

awaiting criminal trial may be held in juvenile detention facilities or adult jails. 

A total of 48 states authorize jailing of juveniles who are awaiting trial in criminal 

court. In 14 of these states, use of adult 

jails rather than juvenile detention facilities for pretrial holding of transferred juveniles is mandated, at least in some 

circumstances; in the rest, the use of jails 

is allowed but not required. Sometimes a 

special court order or finding is required 

for jail holding, and sometimes a minimum 

age. For example, California requires a 

finding that a youth’s pretrial detention in 

an ordinary juvenile facility would endanger the public or other juvenile detainees. 

In Illinois, a juvenile must be at least 15 to 

be held in jail, and a court must specifically order it. New Jersey requires a special 

hearing, comparable to a transfer hearing, 

before jail holding may be ordered. On the 

other hand, some states, such as Idaho 

and Tennessee, generally mandate use of 

jails for pretrial confinement when juveniles are processed as adults but empower courts to order the use of juvenile 

detention centers in individual cases. 

Laws in 18 of the states that allow jail 

holding of juveniles specify that they 

must be kept from contact with adult jail 

inmates. Transferred youth in most states 

may also be held in juvenile detention facilities, either routinely or pursuant to 

court orders in individual cases. 

Most states allow but do not require transferred youth to be held 

pretrial in adult jails rather than juvenile detention centers 

State 

Jailing of 

transferred youth 

allowed pending 

criminal trial 

Minimum age, 

special condition, 

or court order 

required 

Use of jails 

mandated 

under some 

circumstances 

Youth–adult 

separation 

required 

Number of states 48 15 14 18 

Alabama n n

Alaska n

Arizona n n

Arkansas n

California n n n

Colorado n n n

Connecticut n n

Delaware n n n

District of Columbia n

Florida n n n

Georgia n n n

Hawaii n n

Idaho n n n

Illinois n n n

Indiana n

Iowa n n n

Kansas n n

Kentucky n n

Louisiana n n

Maine n n

Maryland n n n

Massachusetts n n

Michigan n n n

Minnesota n

Mississippi n

Missouri n n

Montana n n

Nebraska n n

Nevada n

New Hampshire n n

New Jersey n n

New Mexico n n

New York n n

North Carolina 

North Dakota n

Ohio n n

Oklahoma n n n

Oregon n n

Pennsylvania n

Rhode Island n

South Carolina n n

South Dakota n n

Tennessee n n n

Texas n

Utah n n

Vermont n n

Virginia n

Washington n

West Virginia 

Wisconsin n n

Wyoming 

Note: New Mexico and Washington provisions apply only to previously convicted juveniles. Table information is as 

of the end of the 2009 legislative session. 

22 National Report Series Bulletin 
 

 

A 2009 survey found 

that more than 7,000 

youth who were younger 

than 18 were in jails 

Federal data collections shed some light 

on state approaches to pretrial holding 

of transferred youth. The BJS-sponsored 

Annual Survey of Jails (ASJ) provides a 

one-day snapshot of the population confined in jails nationwide. According to the 

most recent ASJ, at midyear 2009 the nation’s jails held a total of 7,220 inmates 

who were younger than 18, including 

5,847 who had been tried or were awaiting trial as adults—less than 1% of the 

total jail population. 

However, this cannot be considered an 

exact count of “transferred juveniles” in 

jail because many of these inmates who 

were younger than 18 were held in states 

where ordinary criminal court jurisdiction 

begins at age 16 or 17. Moreover, the 

total does not take account of inmates 

who were accused of offenses committed 

while younger than 18 but were already 

older than 18 by the time of the survey. 

The Census of Juveniles in Residential 

Placement (CJRP) provides a one-day 

population count of the nation’s juvenile 

facilities, including those normally used 

for detaining youth pending trial in the 

juvenile system. The most recent CJRP 

found that, as of the 2007 census date, 

a total of 1,101 individuals being held in 

juvenile residential facilities nationwide 

were awaiting proceedings in criminal 

court, in addition to 303 who were awaiting transfer hearings. Taken together, 

these youth made up about 1.6% of the 

residents of the nation’s juvenile facilities. 

Between 2005 and 2009, an average of 5,700 juveniles were held as adults 

in local jails—less than 1% of all inmates 

Number of juveniles 

2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 

0 

1,000 

2,000 

3,000 

4,000 

5,000 

6,000 

7,000 

Juveniles held as adult inmates in local jails 

Note: Authors’ adaptation of Minton’s Jail Inmates at Midyear 2009—Statistical Tables, Prison and Jail Inmates at 

Midyear. 

Federal law prohibiting 

holding of juveniles with 

adults does not apply to 

transferred juveniles 

The Juvenile Justice and Delinquency 

Prevention (JJDP) Act of 1974, as 

amended, generally requires, as a 

condition of federal funding for state 

juvenile justice systems, that juvenile 

delinquents and status offenders not 

be confined in jails or other facilities 

in which they have contact with incarcerated adults who have been 

convicted or are awaiting trial on 

criminal charges. However, regulations interpreting the JJDP Act provide that juveniles who are being 

tried as adults for felonies or have 

been criminally convicted of felonies 

may be held in adult facilities without 

violating this “sight and sound separation” mandate. Juveniles who have 

been transferred to the jurisdiction of 

a criminal court may also be confined with other juveniles in juvenile 

facilities without running afoul of the 

JJDP Act mandate. However, once 

these youth reach the state’s maximum age of extended juvenile jurisdiction, they must be separated from 

the juvenile population. 

The proposed Juvenile Justice and 

Delinquency Prevention Reauthorization Act of 2009, currently pending 

before Congress, would eliminate the 

special exception that permits jail 

holding of transferred juveniles while 

they await proceedings in criminal 

court. Effective 3 years from the enactment of the Reauthorization Act, 

the sight and sound separation mandate would apply to such youth. They 

could not be jailed with adults unless 

a court of competent jurisdiction, 

after considering a number of individualized factors, had determined 

that the interests of justice 

required it. 

September 2011 23 
 

Convicted juveniles do not always receive harsher 

sanctions in the adult system 

Sentencing and 

correctional handling of 

transferred youth vary 

from state to state 

There are few national sources of information regarding what happens to youth 

once they are transferred to criminal 

courts. Even the most basic question— 

whether convicted youth are sanctioned 

more severely in the adult system than 

they would have been in the juvenile system—is difficult to answer, as various 

studies focusing on individual jurisdictions have yielded inconsistent results. 

On the one hand, most studies have concluded that criminal processing of these 

youth is more likely to result in incarceration and that periods of incarceration that 

criminal courts impose tend to be longer. 

However, a few have found no such differences in sentencing severity. In any case, 

it is likely that juvenile-criminal sentencing 

differences are largest in states that criminally prosecute only the most serious 

juvenile offenders. In states with transfer 

laws that apply to a broader range of less 

serious offenses, one would expect the 

adult system to regard transferred youth 

more lightly—and perhaps more lightly 

than the juvenile system would. 

Special analyses of data from the State 

Court Processing Statistics Program 

(SCPS) and the National Judicial Reporting Program (NJRP) have shed some light 

on the ways in which criminal sentencing 

of transferred juvenile felons compares 

with dispositions of nontransferred youth 

on the one hand, and with sentencing of 

adult criminals on the other. In the first 

comparison, data on juvenile felony defendants from the 1990, 1992, and 1994 

SCPS sample were contrasted with data 

on youth formally processed in the juvenile courts of the same large urban jurisdictions. Overall, 68% of the transferred 

youth received sentences involving incarceration in jail or prison, whereas only 

40% of the nontransferred youth received 

dispositions involving placement in juvenile correctional facilities. Of those convicted in criminal court of violent offenses, 

79% were sentenced to incarceration, 

whereas only 44% of those adjudicated 

delinquent for violent offenses received 

juvenile dispositions involving placement. 

Similar criminal-juvenile differences were 

found in sanctions received by property 

offenders (57% incarcerated in the criminal system versus 35% in the juvenile 

system), drug offenders (50% versus 

41%), and public order offenders (60% 

versus 46%). 

A separate issue is whether, by reason of 

their age, juveniles in criminal court receive more lenient sentencing treatment 

than adult defendants. Analyses of 1996 

NJRP data and 1998 SCPS data, comparing sentences that transferred juvenile felons received with sentences that adult 

felony defendants received, found no such 

consistent pattern of age-based leniency. 

Both studies found that transferred juveniles convicted of violent felonies were 

about as likely as adults to be sentenced 

to some form of incarceration. At least in 

the NJRP sample, juveniles convicted of 

property and weapons offenses were considerably more likely to be incarcerated 

than adult property and weapons offenders. Moreover, even though the NJRP 

analysis showed that transferred juveniles 

were sentenced to shorter maximum prison terms than were adults for sexual 

assault, burglary, and drug offense convictions, they received longer prison 

terms than adults did for murder and 

weapons offense convictions. 

Among felony defendants convicted of property and weapons offenses, 

transferred juveniles were far more likely than adults to be sentenced to 

prison terms Profile of felony Mean maximum sentence 

Offense/ sentence imposed length (in months) 

defendant Total Prison Jail Probation Prison Jail Probation 

All offenses 

Transferred juveniles 100% 60% 19% 21% 91 6 44 

Adults 100 37 23 40 59 6 38 

Violent offenses 

Transferred juveniles 100 75 9 15 118 8 55 

Adults 100 78 5 17 101 7 46 

Property offenses 

Transferred juveniles 100 46 27 27 39 6 43 

Adults 100 18 28 54 46 6 38 

Drug offenses 

Transferred juveniles 100 31 36 33 30 6 29 

Adults 100 34 28 38 47 6 39 

Weapons offenses 

Transferred juveniles 100 55 20 25 48 6 26 

Adults 100 39 17 44 42 5 31 

Other offenses 

Transferred juveniles 100 37 43 20 48 6 33 

Adults 100 22 37 41 41 6 36 

Source: Authors’ adaptation of Levin, Langan, and Brown’s State Court Sentencing of Convicted Felons, 1996. 

24 National Report Series Bulletin 
 

Convicted youth may 

sometimes serve part of 

their sentences in 

juvenile facilities 

States take a variety of correctional approaches with criminally convicted youth 

who receive sentences of incarceration, 

including straight incarceration in adult facilities with no distinction between minor 

and adult inmates, segregated incarceration in special facilities for underage offenders, and graduated incarceration that 

begins in juvenile facilities and is followed 

by later transfer to adult ones. According 

to juvenile correctional agencies responding to a 2008 survey that the Council of 

Juvenile Correctional Administrators conducted, in about two-thirds of states, 

juveniles who have been convicted and 

sentenced to incarceration by criminal 

courts may serve some portion of their 

sentences in juvenile correctional 

facilities. 

Several states set a statutory minimum 

age—typically 16—for commitment to an 

adult correctional facility. In Delaware, for 

example, a youth younger than 16 who 

has been sentenced to a term of imprisonment must be held initially by the 

state’s Division of Youth Rehabilitation 

Services and then transferred to the 

state’s Department of Corrections upon 

reaching his or her 16th birthday. 

The 2007 Census of Juveniles in Residential Placement counted a total of 761 inmates in juvenile residential facilities who 

had been convicted in criminal court and, 

presumably, were either serving their 

sentences or awaiting transfer to adult 

facilities. 

State prisons, the bulk 

of them in the South, 

held more than 2,700 

juveniles in 2009 

At mid-year 2009, the National Prisoner 

Statistics Program, which collects oneday snapshot information on state prison 

inmates, counted a total of 2,778 inmates 

younger than age 18 in state prisons 

nationwide. About 46% of these inmates 

were held in prisons in southern states. 

Although many of these youth were undoubtedly convicted following prosecution 

under state transfer laws, more than half 

were held in states where ordinary criminal court jurisdiction begins at age 16 or 

17 rather than 18. 

Half of inmates younger than 18 held in state prisons come from states 

with a younger age of criminal responsibility 

More than 100 (10) 

50 to 100 (7) 

15 to 50 (11) 

5 to 15 (7) 

Less than 5 (15) 

State Inmates* State Inmates* State Inmates* 

U.S. total 2,778 Upper age 17 1,368 Montana 1 

Alabama 118 Nebraska 21 

Upper age 15 737 Alaska 7 Nevada 118 

Connecticut 332 Arizona 157 New Jersey 21 

New York 190 Arkansas 17 New Mexico 3 

North Carolina 215 California 0 North Dakota 0 

Colorado 79 Ohio 86 

Upper age 16 673 Delaware 28 Oklahoma 19 

Georgia 99 Florida 393 Oregon 13 

Illinois 106 Hawaii 2 Pennsylvania 61 

Louisiana 15 Idaho 0 Rhode Island 1 

Massachusetts 8 Indiana 54 South Dakota 1 

Michigan 132 Iowa 13 Tennessee 22 

Missouri 31 Kansas 5 Utah 6 

New Hampshire 0 Kentucky 0 Vermont 4 

South Carolina 89 Maine 0 Virginia 16 

Texas 156 Maryland 58 Washington 2 

Wisconsin 37 Minnesota 13 West Virginia 0 

Mississippi 28 Wyoming 1 

* Reported number of inmates younger than age 18 held in custody in state prisons, 2009. 

Source: Authors’ adaptation of West’s Prison Inmates at Midyear 2009—Statistical Tables, Prison and Jail 

Inmates at Midyear. 

September 2011 25 
 

Transfer laws generally have not been shown to 

deter crime 

Some research suggests 

that transfer may 

increase subsequent 

offending 

Given the many practical ways in which 

state transfer laws vary in their scope and 

operation, blanket statements about their 

effects should be read with caution. However, insofar as these laws are intended to 

deter youth crime generally, or to deter or 

reduce further criminal behavior on the 

part of youth subjected to transfer, research over several decades has generally 

failed to establish their effectiveness. 

Research on the general deterrence effects of transfer laws—their tendency to 

discourage the commission of offenses 

subject to transfer and criminal prosecution—has not produced entirely consistent results. Most studies have not found 

reductions in juvenile crime rates that can 

be linked to transfer laws. One multistate 

analysis by Levitt concluded that there 

could be a moderate general deterrent effect, and studies based on interviews with 

juveniles, conducted by Redding and Fuller and by Glassner and others, suggest 

the possibility that transfer laws could 

deter crime if sufficiently publicized. However, the weight of the evidence suggests 

that state transfer laws have little or no 

tendency to deter would-be juvenile criminals. Possible explanations include juveniles’ general ignorance of transfer laws, 

tendency to discount or ignore risks in 

decisionmaking, and lack of impulse 

control. 

A separate body of research, comparing 

postprocessing outcomes for criminally 

prosecuted youth with those of youth 

handled in the juvenile system, has 

uncovered what appear to be counterdeterrent effects of transfer laws. Six 

large-scale studies summarized by Redding—employing a range of different 

methodologies and measures of offending, and focusing on a variety of jurisdictions, populations, and types of transfer 

laws—have all found greater overall recidivism rates among juveniles who were 

prosecuted as adults than among matched 

youth who were retained in the juvenile 

system. Criminally prosecuted youth were 

also generally found to have recidivated 

sooner and more frequently. Poor outcomes like these could be attributable to a 

variety of causes, including the direct and 

indirect effects of criminal conviction on 

the life chances of transferred youth, the 

lack of access to rehabilitative resources 

in the adult corrections system, and the 

hazards of association with older criminal 

“mentors.” 

However, some critics have raised the 

possibility that the observed greater reoffending on the part of transferred youth is 

simply a consequence of group differences between transferred and nontransferred 

youth—not an effect of transfer but a 

“selection bias” that could not be corrected for, given the limited information and 

statistical controls available to researchers. (See, for example, Meyers’ study 

“The Recidivism of Violent Youths in Juvenile and Adult Court: A Consideration of 

Selection Bias.”) 

The studies finding that transfer had 

counterdeterrent effects did not all agree 

in finding these effects for all offense 

types—leaving open the possibility that 

criminal prosecution may work for some 

kinds of young offenders and not work for 

others. In fact, a 2010 comparison, by 

Schubert and others, of rearrest outcomes 

for transferred and nontransferred youth 

found that, whereas transfer appeared to 

have no effect on rearrest rates for the 

sample as a whole, transferred person offenders had lower rearrest rates than their 

nontransferred counterparts. 

Although transfer laws in general have not 

been shown to work (that is, improve 

public safety by reducing serious crime 

through specific or general deterrence), it 

is not clear whether this conclusion applies to all transfer laws equally because 

the key studies have been conducted in 

only a handful of states. Again, it should 

be remembered that transfer laws vary 

considerably, and their effects are unlikely 

to be uniform. It may be that some transfer provisions—targeting certain offenses 

or resulting in certain sanctions—are more 

effective in deterring crime than others. 

The data gathered under BJS’s new Survey of Juveniles Charged in Adult Criminal 

Courts should significantly contribute to 

our understanding of the national impact 

of state transfer mechanisms but is unlikely to support state-level analyses. 

Better state-level data are necessary to 

support the state-specific research that is 

clearly needed to shed light on the impact 

and workings of each state’s transfer 

laws. 

26 National Report Series Bulletin 
 

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Torbet, P., Gable, R., Hurst, H., Montgomery, I., 

Szymanski, L., and Thomas, D. 1996. State 

Responses to Serious and Violent Juvenile Crime. 

Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, 

Office of Justice Programs, Office of Juvenile 

Justice and Delinquency Prevention. 

Torbet, P., and Szymanski, L. 1998. State Legislative Responses to Violent Juvenile Crime: 1996– 

97 Update. Washington, DC: U.S. Department 

of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Office of 

Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. 

West, H. 2010. Prison Inmates at Midyear 2009— 

Statistical Tables. Prison and Jail Inmates at 

Midyear. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of 

Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of 

Justice Statistics. 

The authors used the following state reports: 

Arizona Administrative Office of the Courts. 

Available at http://www.azcourts.gov/jjsd/ 

PublicationsReports.aspx. 

California Office of the Attorney General. Available 

at http://ag.ca.gov/crime.php. 

Florida Office of the State Courts Administrator. 

Available at http://www.flcourts.org/gen_public/ 

stats. 

Kansas Judicial Branch. Available at http:// 

judicial.kscourts.org:7780/stats. 

Michigan State Court Administrative Office. 

Available at http://courts.michigan.gov/scao/ 

resources/publications. 

Missouri Department of Social Services. Available 

at http://www.dss.mo.gov/re/jcsar.htm. 

Montana Board of Crime Control. Available at 

http://www.mbcc.mt.gov/JuvenileJustice/ 

JuvJustice.asp. 

North Carolina Department of Juvenile Justice and 

Delinquency Prevention. Available at http://www. 

juvjus.state.nc.us/statistics/statistics.html. 

Supreme Court of Ohio. Available at http://www. 

sconet.state.oh.us/publications. 

Oregon Youth Authority. Available at http://www. 

oregon.gov/OYA/jjis_data_eval_rpts.shtml. 

Tennessee Council of Juvenile and Family Court 

Judges. Available at http://www.tn.gov/tcjfcj/ 

annualrpt.html. 

Texas Office of Court Administration. Available at 

http://www.courts.state.tx.us/pubs/pubs-home. 

asp. 

Washington State Sentencing Guidelines Commission. Available at http://www.sgc.wa.gov/ 

Informational/Publications.htm. 

September 2011 27 
U.S. Department of Justice 

Office of Justice Programs 

Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention 

Washington, DC 20531 

Official Business 

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Acknowledgments 

This Bulletin was written by Patrick 

Griffin, Senior Research Associate, Sean 

Addie, Policy Analyst, Benjamin Adams, 

Research Associate, and Kathy 

Firestine, Research Assistant, at the 

National Center for Juvenile Justice, 

with funds provided by OJJDP to support the National Juvenile Justice Data 

Analysis Project. 

This Bulletin was prepared under cooperative 

agreement number 2008–JF–FX–K071 from the 

Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency 

Prevention (OJJDP), U.S. Department of Justice. 

Points of view or opinions expressed in this 

document are those of the authors and do not 

necessarily represent the official position or 

policies of OJJDP or the U.S. Department of 

Justice. 

The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency 

Prevention is a component of the Office of 

Justice Programs, which also includes the 

Bureau of Justice Assistance; the Bureau of 

Justice Statistics; the National Institute of 

Justice; the Office for Victims of Crime; and 

the Office of Sex Offender Sentencing, 

Monitoring, Apprehending, Registering, and 

Tracking.