Armed with a new juvenile justice reform law and propelled by years
of escalating youth crime, judges in Missouri sent a record 302 youths
to stand trial as adults in 1996.
Fewer Missouri juveniles are tried as adults
What a difference the years since have made.
Youths in Missouri are now more than three times less likely as they
were in 1996 to be transferred from juvenile to adult court. Just 89
such cases were reported in 2001, the most recent year for which data
are available.
The trend is partly explained by a coinciding drop in juvenile crime,
particularly for violent offenses. In some jurisdictions like St. Louis
County, juvenile cases involving murder, manslaughter, rape or robbery
have been cut in half since 1995. And in the city of St. Louis, juvenile
homicide cases have fallen from 28 in 1994 to two last year.
But experts say the plummeting crime statistics only offer a partial
answer as to why a flood of referrals to adult court has slowed to a
trickle. “That's clearly the key factor, but it's not the only factor,”
said Scott Decker, a criminologist at the University of Missouri at St.
Louis.
Equally significant, Decker and others say, has been a shift in
political winds that favor youth rehabilitation over adult-size
punishment. When crime was peaking, so, too, was the demand by many to
ship juvenile offenders to the adult system.
One expert, Barry Feld, a professor at the University of Minnesota,
said, “Because violent crime is down, there is less political pressure
to transfer kids.”
Recent research has questioned the effectiveness of sending youths to
adult correction systems. One key study of youths in New York and New
Jersey, for example, found that those tried as adults were more likely
to commit crimes after their release. “That exposure to the adult system
— particularly for the youngest
offenders — seems to make the kid worse,” Decker said.
Reliable national data on the number of youths tried as adults are
not available. What federal statistics do show is a 33 percent drop in transfers
from juvenile to adult court between the years of 1994 and 1998. But in
many states, youth offenders can be sent directly to adult court without
stepping foot in the juvenile system. Figures on such cases are not
tracked at a federal level.
States like Illinois don't compile statewide figures of any kind on
juveniles being tried as adults, making it difficult to track trends. But what is clear, experts say, is that the juvenile justice system
as a whole has experienced a kind of transformation since the mid-1990s,
when states by the dozens passed laws making it easier to try juveniles
as adults.
Missouri's 1995 juvenile reform act, for example, followed several
years in which many judges complained of having no good options for
severe offenders.
At the time, the Division of Youth Services had a waiting list for
its juvenile corrections programs. And if judges could find a placement
at all, often the offender would be sent home after only a few months.
“Sometimes the only alternative (judges) had was to
certify kids to adult court,” said Julie Cole Agee, executive director
of the Missouri Juvenile Justice Association. Worse yet, evidence at the time suggested that many of the youths who
were sent to the adult system essentially fell through the cracks. A
1994 Post-Dispatch investigation found that 40 percent of youths who
were certified as adults were sent home within hours because warrants
were refused. Often, witnesses refused to testify in the cases.
Judges' discretion
Missouri responded with an approach that many say resisted the
tough-on-crime movement of the time. While other states mandated that
youths automatically be tried as adults for a specific list of offenses,
Missouri left the decision up to judges.
In Illinois, depending on the age of the offender, a variety of
serious offenses — including murder and aggravated sexual assault —
automatically exclude a youth from the juvenile court
In Missouri, judges are required to hold a certification hearing for
each juvenile case involving murder, first-degree assault, forcible rape
or sodomy, first-degree robbery, drug distribution or where the offender
has two prior felonies. But the judge has full say in whether the youth
remains in the juvenile system.
The law was accompanied by a sizable investment in new juvenile
services, adding state beds and giving courts money to set up programs
to treat delinquents in their own community. Spending on such programs
peaked at $7 million two years ago, up from $600,000 before the law,
Cole Agee said.
Jefferson County Circuit Judge Dennis Kehm said the new investment
—
together with a steady drop in crime — have created better prospects for
rehabilitating youths. “Judges have a broader range of options to look
at,” he said.
Mark Steward, director of the Missouri Division of Youth Services,
said judges are more comfortable keeping kids in the juvenile system
because the state now has the capacity to work with them for longer
periods of time. The state's juvenile corrections has also gained
national attention for its track record in rehabilitating youth.
Kip Seely, administrator of the St. Louis County Family Court, agrees
that more treatment options have resulted in fewer juveniles in adult
court. But he and other court officials in the state point to other
details in the 1995 law that have contributed to the trend, including:
A provision stating that once a juvenile is sent to adult court and
convicted, all future offenses by the youth will be tried there. In the
past, Seely said, some youths would be transferred from juvenile court
multiple times.
The creation of so-called dual jurisdiction, in which offenders can
be sent to adult corrections if they fail to respond to juvenile
programs. Because judges have that option, many say, they are less
inclined to send a youth directly to adult court.
A provision that makes youths eligible to be tried as adults if they
have committed a third felony. Ray Grush, administrator of the St.
Charles County Family Court, believes that threat, together with
education efforts by the court, has acted as a deterrent.
What no one can say for sure is whether the reduction in youths being
tried as adults is sustainable. Budget constraints at the state and local level already have resulted
in less money for various juvenile treatment programs. But the biggest variable may be the juvenile crime rate, which many
believe dropped in the late 1990s, in part, due to an improved economy.
Now the economy has soured and some predict a rebound in youth crime. If that happens, many say, the same factors that sent hundreds of
Missouri youths to adult court could once again return.
“When the system is stressed, there's going to be more of a tendency
to take those kids and certify them” to the adult system, Seely said.
By Matthew Franck
11 November 2003
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/News/St.+Louis+City+%2F+County/
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