A juvenile is an individual at or below the maximum age of juvenile court jurisdiction. Established by state statute, the maximum age of juvenile court jurisdiction is the oldest age at which an individual can be processed in juvenile court. Individuals who are above the maximum age of juvenile court jurisdiction are considered adults and therefore are under criminal court jurisdiction. In 39 states and the District of Columbia the maximum age is 17. In 11 states, the maximum age is either 15 or 16. Except for Wyoming (where the maximum age dropped from age 18 to 17), the maximum age had not changed in any state, when comparing the state laws in 1978 with the laws in 1994. Although the organization of state juvenile justice systems varies, two options are generally provided for processing juvenile delinquency cases—formal and informal. An authorized court official (e.g., juvenile prosecutor or juvenile probation officer) decides whether to process the case formally through the court system or informally by diverting the case from the juvenile court. For handling formal cases, a petition must be drafted and filed to provide notice of the offenses that will be pursued and to request the court to adjudicate—judicially determine (judge) whether or not the youth is a delinquent offender. For informal cases there is no formal court petition or legal instrument requesting the court to adjudicate the youth as a delinquent. Whether the case is handled formally or informally, juveniles receive dispositions. Disposition options may include dismissal of the case, probation, fines or restitution, community service, and placement. A juvenile who is at or below the maximum age of juvenile court jurisdiction may be sent to criminal court by one of the following three methods: judicial waiver, which allows juvenile court judges to transfer juveniles to criminal court. Generally, prosecutors initiate judicial waiver by filing a waiver petition asking the judge to consider the case for waiver; prosecutor direct filing, which allows prosecutors to decide whether to file certain cases in juvenile or criminal court; application of statutory exclusion laws, which specify crimes or juveniles with certain prior records that are excluded from juvenile court jurisdiction. For each method, the prosecutor plays an important role in determining whether a juvenile will be sent to criminal court. For example, the offense with which the prosecutor charges the accused can determine whether the juvenile falls under a state’s criteria for criminal court prosecution. Juveniles prosecuted in state criminal court are subject to the same state court procedures and sentencing guidelines as other defendants in criminal court. To determine the frequency with which juveniles were sent to criminal court, we developed estimates of the number of juvenile cases transferred to criminal court by juvenile court judges (judicial waiver) using the NCJJ national data—National Juvenile Court Data Archive (NJCDA)—for calendar years 1988 through 1992. As part of our analysis of judicial waivers, we developed estimates of the age, sex, race, and offense profiles of juveniles transferred to criminal court by judges in Arizona, California, Florida, Missouri, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Utah. Data limitations precluded us from developing estimates of the total number of juvenile cases filed directly in criminal court by prosecutors (prosecutor direct filing) and those juveniles excluded from juvenile court because of the offense committed and/or prior court records (statutory exclusion) in those states permitting these methods. We did, however, contact state court officials in the District of Columbia and 10 states that we identified as having direct filing laws and analyzed data they provided. We analyzed the statutory exclusion laws in the District of Columbia and 37 states that we identified as having these laws to determine the types of offenses and/or prior court records that exclude juveniles from juvenile court. To analyze the sentences of juveniles tried in criminal court, we used criminal court data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics. We identified offenses, conviction rates, and incarceration rates in California, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New York, Pennsylvania, and Vermont. To gather prosecutors opinions on data related to the processing of juveniles in criminal courts, we sent a survey to a nationally representative sample of district prosecutor offices that dealt with juveniles in juvenile court. To determine the conditions of confinement for juveniles in correctional facilities, we visited seven prisons in Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, and Ohio. To provide a summary of state laws governing which juveniles may be sent to criminal court, we reviewed the statutes for all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Appendix I presents more details about our objectives, scope, and methodology, including a discussion of how we selected the states and prisons we visited. Our results apply to states and prisons for which we collected data and cannot be projected to other locations. We did not verify data provided by the states. We did our work from May 1993 through April 1995 in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. Since no federal agency has responsibility for the issues addressed in this report, we did not obtain comments on a draft of this report. However, we did discuss our results with NCJJ and OJJDP officials and, where appropriate, incorporated their comments. Limited nationwide and state data existed on the total number of juvenile cases sent to criminal court. However, we obtained information on the number of juvenile cases sent to criminal court by judicial waiver and some information on the number sent by prosecutor direct filing. Since data on statutory exclusions were not available, we analyzed state statutes to identify the possible impact of the statutes on juveniles. According to our analysis of NCJJ data, the rate at which juvenile court judges sent formal delinquency cases to criminal court has remained less than 2 percent from 1988 to 1992. Additionally, data available from 5 states, the District of Columbia, and a few counties in 5 other states on the number of prosecutor direct filing cases filed in criminal court annually showed that it ranged from 4 cases in one state to about 7,200 cases in another state. Our analysis of statutory exclusion laws indicated that the laws generally established specific criteria that focused on juveniles (1) charged with serious violent offenses and/or (2) with previous court records. In addition, our analysis showed that legislation passed in the last 16 years included two primary types of changes: (1) in 24 states and the District of Columbia legislative changes tended to increase the population of juveniles who may be sent to criminal court and (2) in 17 other states, recent legislation changed the method in which certain juveniles may be sent to criminal court (e.g., from the judicial waiver to the prosecutor direct filing). The results of our national survey of state prosecutors suggested that in most prosecutorial offices, judicial waivers accounted for a higher percentage of juveniles arriving in criminal court than direct filings or statutory exclusions. We identified (1) judicial waiver laws in 47 states and the District of Columbia, (2) prosecutor direct filing laws in 10 states and the District of Columbia, and (3) one or more statutory exclusion laws in 37 states and the District of Columbia. We also identified 21 states with provisions that allow criminal court judges to transfer cases from criminal court to juvenile court under circumstances specified in the law (reverse waiver). For example, in Arkansas, when a prosecutor directly files a case in criminal court, the criminal court judge may remand the case to juvenile court. In addition, we identified 19 states that allow juveniles prosecuted and convicted in criminal court to receive dispositions as a juvenile under specified circumstances. For example, in California a juvenile convicted in criminal court may receive a disposition as a juvenile if the California Youth Authority determines that the juvenile is amenable to treatment. See table 1 for a summary of the state statutes and appendix IV for a detailed summary of statutes in all 50 states and the District of Columbia that govern which juveniles may be sent to criminal court. The percent of formal delinquency cases judicially waived to criminal court (judicial waiver rate) increased by 33 percent from 1.2 percent in 1988 to 1.6 percent in 1992, which represented a growth from about 7,000 to almost 12,000 cases a year, as shown in table 2. This increase occurred while the total number of formal delinquency cases increased by about 31 percent; the number of waived cases increased about 68 percent. Data showed that judicial waiver rates varied by offense type, as shown in table 3. The judicial waiver rate for person offenses in 1992 was 2.4 percent in contrast to the waiver rate for property offenses, which was 1.3 percent. Therefore, judges were more likely to waive cases to criminal court involving juveniles charged with person offenses than juveniles charged with property offenses in 1992. While the waiver rates for all the offenses increased from 1988 through 1992, the waiver rates for drug offenses increased the most; however, the rate decreased between 1991 and 1992. While the chances of juvenile cases being waived to criminal court were highest for juveniles charged with person and drug offenses, property offenders made up the largest proportion of waived cases, as shown in table 4. This was due to the prevalence of property offenses versus person or drug offenses. For example, NCJJ data showed that in 1992, referrals to juvenile court were about 401,000 or 54 percent for property offenses, about 165,000 or 22 percent for person offenses, and 46,000 or 6 percent for drug offenses. Also shown in table 4, the offense profile of judicially waived cases changed from 1988 to 1992. For example, person offenses increased from 29 percent of the cases waived in 1988 to 34 percent in 1992. In addition, property offense cases decreased from 53 percent of the cases waived in 1988 to 45 percent in 1992. Similar to the offense profile, the demographic profile of juvenile cases waived to criminal court had changed slightly from 1988 to 1992 (see table 5). For example, the percentage of waived cases for juveniles age 16 or older decreased from 93 percent in 1988 to 88 percent in 1992.