juvenile court research paper

Juvenile Crime, Juvenile Justice (2001)

Chapter: introduction, introduction.

Juvenile crime is one of the nation's serious problems. Concern about it is widely shared by federal, state, and local government officials and by the public. In recent years, this concern has grown with the dramatic rise in juvenile violence that began in the mid-1980s and peaked in the early 1990s. Although juvenile crime rates appear to have fallen since the mid-1990s, this decrease has not alleviated the concern. Many states began taking a tougher legislative stance toward juveniles in the late 1970s and early 1980s, a period during which juvenile crime rates were stable or falling slightly, and federal reformers were urging prevention and less punitive measures. Some of the dissonance between the federal agenda and what was happening in the states at that time may have been caused by significant changes in legal procedures that made juvenile court processes more similar—though not identical—to those in criminal (adult) court. The main response to the most recent spike in violent juvenile crime has been enactment of laws that further blur distinctions between juvenile courts and adult courts. States continued to toughen their juvenile crime laws in recent years, making sentencing more punitive, expanding allowable transfers to criminal (adult) court, or doing away with some of the confidentiality safeguards of juvenile court. Many such changes were enacted after the juvenile violent crime rate had already begun to fall. The rehabilitative model embodied in the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act of 1974, focusing on the needs of the young offender, has lost ever more ground over the past 20 years to punitive models that focus mainly on the offense committed. These puni-

tive policies have had a disproportionate impact on some minority groups, particularly black youngsters, an important issue that is explored in depth in Chapter 6 .

Crime policies in the United States have been moving in the direction of treating juveniles as adults, even though many young people continue to grow up in settings that “fail to provide the resources, the supports, and the opportunities essential to a healthy development and reasonable preparation for productive adulthood” (National Research Council, 1993a:2)—settings that put young people at high risk for delinquency. In 1997, 40 percent of all those living below the poverty level in the United States were under the age of 18 (Snyder and Sickmund, 1999). Structural changes in society, including fewer two-parent homes and more maternal employment, have contributed to a lack of resources for the supervision of children's and adolescents' free time.

Government policy on juvenile delinquency must often struggle with the appropriate balance of concern over the healthy development of children and adolescents who violate the law and a public desire to punish criminals. This tension between rehabilitation and punishment when dealing with children and adolescents who commit crimes results in an ambivalent orientation toward young offenders. Criminal acts must be suppressed, condemned, and punished. Nevertheless, children and adolescents who commit criminal acts must be educated and supported in a growth process that should be the objective of government policy for all young people, including young offenders.

A number of cognitive and social features of childhood and adolescence influence the content of juvenile crime policy. Historically, children under the age of seven have been considered below the age of reason, and therefore unable to formulate the criminal intent necessary to be held accountable for criminal offenses. In practice, children younger than age 10 are rarely involved in the juvenile justice system. Arrests of those younger than 10 years old account for less than 2 percent of all juvenile arrests. By the age of 16 or 17, most adolescents are deemed to have sufficient cognitive capacity and life experience to be held accountable for intended wrongful acts. How to deal appropriately with those who commit crimes between the ages of 10 and 17 is the issue faced in juvenile crime policy. Adolescence is a period of dating, driving, and expanding social networks—all choices that can produce positive or negative consequences for the adolescent and the community. Public policies in the areas of education, medical care, alcoholic beverage control, and juvenile crime reflect beliefs that adolescents have not acquired the abilities or capacities necessary for adult status. Creating the appropriate public policy for a period of semiautonomy is no small task (Zimring, 1982). To

further complicate the matter, crime rates peak in mid- to late adolescence, making policy toward young offenders of special importance.

To best answer the questions of how to deal with young offenders requires knowledge of factors in the individual, family, social settings, and community that influence the development of delinquent behavior; of the types of offenses committed by young people; and of the types of interventions that can most efficiently and effectively prevent offending in the first place or prevent its recurrence. This study reviews literature in all of these areas to provide an objective view of juvenile crime and the juvenile justice system in the United States.

CHILD AND ADOLESCENT DEVELOPMENT: NOT JUST LITTLE ADULTS

What is often missing from discussions of juvenile crime today is recognition that children and adolescents are not just little adults, nor is the world in which they live the world of adults. Physical, emotional, and cognitive development continue throughout adolescence. Although young people can approach decisions in a manner similar to adults under some circumstances, many decisions that children and adolescents make are under precisely the conditions that are hardest for adults—unfamiliar tasks, choices with uncertain outcomes, and ambiguous situations (see, for example, Beyth-Marom and Fischhoff, 1997; Cohn et al., 1995). Further complicating the matter for children and adolescents is that they often face deciding whether or not to engage in a risky behavior, such as taking drugs, shoplifting, or getting into a fight, in situations involving emotions, stress, peer pressure, and little time for reflection.

Young people are liable to overestimate their own understanding of a situation, underestimate the probability of negative outcomes, and make judgments based on incorrect or incomplete information (Quadrel et al., 1993). Although adults are also prone to the same misperceptions, children's and adolescents' lack of experience increases their vulnerability. Quadrel et al. (1993) found that high-risk adolescents (with legal and substance abuse problems, recruited from group homes) were more likely than middle-class youngsters to have incorrect information about risks, while being extremely confident in their information.

Emotions can affect decision making for both adolescents and adults. When people are experiencing positive emotions, such as excitement, happiness, love (as adolescents often do when with groups of their peers), they tend to underestimate the possibility of negative consequences to their actions. When experiencing negative emotions, such as anger, jealousy, sadness, people tend to focus on the near term and lose sight of

the big picture. This is particularly relevant for adolescents, who have been found to experience wider and more rapid mood swings than adults (Larson et al., 1980; Larson and Lampman-Petraitis, 1989; Larson and Richards, 1994).

Studies of young people's understanding of legal processing and the consequences of various legal choices, such as forfeiting the right to remain silent or to have an attorney, show differences between those younger and older than about 15 years (Grisso, 1997). Those under age 15 often misunderstand the concept of a right, in general, and of Miranda rights, in particular. They foresee fewer alternative courses of action in legal proceedings and tend to concentrate on short-term rather than long-term consequences (Grisso, 1980; 1981). For example, younger youth often misconstrue the right to remain silent, believing it means they should be quiet until they are told to talk. Nor do they completely understand the right to have an attorney present, without charge, before they talk (Abramovitch et al., 1995; Grisso, 1981). These misunderstandings raise concerns about children's and young adolescents' competence to stand trial in adult court. Children and adolescents from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds and those with low IQs fare worse in understanding the legal process and their rights than do other children and adolescents of comparable ages (Grisso, 1997). Furthermore, experience with the justice system does not ensure that young people fully understand the process, their rights, or the implications of the decisions they make. Both Grisso (1981) and Lawrence (1983) have found that adolescent delinquents had much poorer understanding of their rights than did adult defendants.

Emerging research using magnetic resonance imaging of the brain demonstrates the cognitive and emotional differences between adolescents and adults. Children and adolescents process emotionally charged information in the part of the brain responsible for instinct and gut reactions. Adults process such information in the “rational” frontal section of the brain (Baird et al., 1999). Children and adolescents may be physiologically less capable than adults of reasoning logically in the face of particularly strong emotions. In a recent study, Thompson et al. (2000) found that the brain continues to develop and change through at least midadolescence, with the most active parts of the brain changing during development. These new insights on brain development may have implications for holding children and adolescents criminally responsible in the same way as adults and raise concerns about initiatives to transfer younger and younger defendants to adult courts.

INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE 1

Looking at the policies of other countries provides some perspective on criminal justice in the United States. An international study of 15 countries—Australia, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, England and Wales, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Japan, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Russia, Sweden, and Switzerland—notes that all have special provisions for young criminals in their justice systems, although some (such as Denmark, Russia, and Sweden) have no special courts for juveniles. Table 1-1 depicts some of the differences among countries, showing the range in variability for the minimum age of criminal responsibility, the age at which full responsibility as an adult can be assumed, the type of court that handles young people committing crimes, whether such young people can be tried in courts that also try adults, the maximum length of sentencing for a juvenile, and policies regarding incarcerating juveniles with adults.

The United States was not alone in seeing a dramatic increase in violent crime by juveniles in the 1980s and early 1990s. Many European countries and Canada experienced increases in their rates of violent crime, particularly among juveniles (Hagan and Foster, 2000; Pfeiffer, 1998). It is difficult to compare rates across countries, because legal definitions of crime vary from country to country. For example, in Germany, assault is counted as a violent crime only if a weapon is used during the commission of the crime, whereas in England and Wales, the degree of injury to the victim determines whether or not an assault counts as a violent crime. Crime is also measured differently in each country. For example, the United States commonly relies on numbers of arrests to measure crime. In Germany, Austria, and Italy, among other countries, crime is measured by the number of cases solved by police (even if the offender has been apprehended) (Pfeiffer, 1998). Nevertheless, trends in juvenile violent crime appeared similar in many developed countries in the 1980s and early 1990s, 2 although the rates were different.

The United States has a high violent crime rate—particularly for homicide—in comparison to other countries, although property crime rates, particularly burglary, are higher than U.S. rates in Canada, England and Wales, and The Netherlands (Hagan and Foster, 2000; Mayhew and White, 1997). In 1994, the violent crime arrest rate (includes homicide, aggravated assault, robbery, and rape) for 13- to 17-year-olds in the United

TABLE 1-1 International Comparisons of Juvenile Justice Systems

States was nearly 800 per 100,000 (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 1995). In England and Wales, about 600 per 100,000 14- to 16-year-olds were convicted or cautioned by the police for violent crimes (homicide, assault, robbery, and rape) in 1994. In Germany, 650 per 100,000 14- to 17-year-olds and in The Netherlands 450 per 100,000 12- to 17-year-olds were suspects of violent crime in 1994 (Pfeiffer, 1998).

Comparing how different countries deal with juvenile offenders is equally challenging. Countries differ in the ages of young people considered legal juveniles, in how juvenile courts are organized, and in the types of institution used to sanction juvenile offenders. As Table 1-1 shows, the minimum age for being considered criminally responsible varies from 7 years (in Switzerland and the Australian state of Tasmania) to 16 (in Belgium and Russia). The age of full criminal responsibility (i.e., the age at which an offender is automatically handled as an adult) is 18 in most of the countries studied by Weitekamp et al. (1999), but is as low as 16 in some Australian states and is 20 in Japan. In the United States, both minimum and maximum ages of juvenile court jurisdiction vary by state, with most states having no minimum age (although in practice, children younger than 10 are seldom seen in juvenile courts). The maximum age of juvenile court jurisdiction is younger in many U.S. states than in the other countries studied, with 3 states having a maximum age of 15, 10 of 16, and the remaining states having a maximum age of 17.

At the same time that states and the federal government in the United States have been moving toward treating juvenile offenders more like adult criminals, many other countries retain a strong rehabilitative stance. The 1988 Youth Court Law of Austria, for example, describes juvenile offending as a normal step in development for which restorative justice, not punishment, is the appropriate response. The Belgium Youth Court Protection Act specifies that the only measures that can be imposed on a juvenile are for his or her care, protection, and education. In New Zealand, since 1989, Family Group Conferences have been used to replace or supplement youth courts for most of the serious criminal cases. In the early 1980s, England and Wales moved toward community-based sanctions for young offenders and away from institutional placements. This trend was reversed in the 1990s, however, when England and Wales reacted to the upswing in juvenile violence in a manner similar to the United States, focusing on the offense, rather than the offender. The U.K. Criminal Justice and Public Order Act of 1994 made it easier to place offenders younger than 15 years in juvenile correctional facilities and extended the maximum length of allowable sentences. The U.K. Crime and Disorder Act of 1998 moved the English juvenile justice system even further toward a punitive, offense-based model.

Neither Sweden nor Denmark uses a separate juvenile court, but youthful immaturity is considered a mitigating factor in deciding their criminal responsibility. In Denmark, maximum punishments well below those available for adults are specified in law for juveniles 15 and older; juveniles under the age of 15 may not be punished, but may be referred to a social welfare agency. In Sweden, imprisonment may only be imposed on juveniles under exceptional circumstances, and even then, the sentences imposed are shorter than for adults.

The United States has a very high overall rate of incarceration. At 645 per 100,000, the U.S. incarceration rate is second only to that of Russia at 685 per 100,000 (Walmsley, 1999). Although adequate juvenile incarceration figures do not exist in the United States, the incarceration rate for homicides committed by juveniles is illustrative of the difference in incarceration rates. In 1992, 12.5 people per 100,000 were incarcerated in the United States for homicides committed as juveniles. Comparable numbers in other countries are 2.3 per 100,000 in The Netherlands, 1.6 per 100,000 in Italy, and 1.3 per 100,000 in Germany (Pfeiffer, 1998). Some of the differences in juvenile homicide incarceration rates are likely to be due to differences in homicide commission rates. In none of the 15 countries surveyed by Weitekamp et al. (1999) can a juvenile who commits a crime be executed, whereas this practice is allowed in the United States.

CHARGE TO THE PANEL

The Panel on Juvenile Crime: Prevention, Treatment, and Control was asked to identify and analyze the full range of research studies and datasets that bear on the nature of juvenile crime, highlighting key issues and data sources that can provide evidence of prevalence and seriousness; race, gender, and class bias; and impacts of deterrence, punishment, and prevention strategies. The panel was further asked to analyze the factors that contribute to delinquent behavior, including a review of the knowledge on child and adolescent development and its implications for prevention and control; to assess the current practices of the juvenile justice system, including the implementation of constitutional safeguards; to examine adjudication, detention and waiver practices; to explore the role of community and institutional settings; to assess the quality of data sources on the clients of both public and private juvenile justice facilities; and to assess the impact of the deinstitutionalization mandates of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act of 1974 on delinquency and community safety.

To meet this charge, the study panel and staff gathered information in a number of ways. Relevant research studies were identified through

targeted searches of UnCover, Medline, Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC), and the National Criminal Justice Research Service (NCJRS). The panel met six times between June 1998 and October 1999 to discuss data availability and research findings, identify critical issues, analyze the data and issues, seek additional information on specific concerns, formulate conclusions and recommendations, and develop this report. Four of these meetings were preceded by workshops at which experts presented information on selected topics and engaged in discussions with panel members. Workshops were held on education and delinquency, juvenile justice system issues, developmental issues relevant to delinquency, and racial disparity in the juvenile justice system. (See Appendix E for workshop agendas.) In addition to the workshops, Howard Snyder, research director of the National Center for Juvenile Justice, spent part of one meeting discussing relevant datasets with the panel members. The panel commissioned three papers: “International Comparison of Juvenile Justice Systems ” by Elmar Weitekamp, Hans-Juergen Kerner, and Gernot Trueg; “Police Encounters with Juvenile Suspects” by Robert Worden and Stephanie Myers; and “The Indeterminancy of Forecasts of Crime Rates and Juvenile Offenses ” by Kenneth Land and Patricia McCall. Several members of the panel made site visits to juvenile detention and correctional facilities in Texas and New York. Study panel members and staff also consulted informally with various experts between meetings.

The charge to the panel was extremely broad, covering many topics that merit books unto themselves, and indeed some of the areas have been the subject of more than one recent book. The panel chose to provide a broad overview of juvenile crime and the juvenile justice system, touching on all the topics in its charge, but going into various levels of depth depending on the amount and quality of data available. In organizing its plan for the study, the panel focused on answering several questions:

What have been the major trends in juvenile crime over the past 20 to 30 years, and what can be predicted about future trends?

What is the role of developmental factors in delinquent behavior and how do families, peers, communities, and social influences contribute to or inhibit that behavior?

What responses are in place to deal with juvenile crime today, are they developmentally appropriate, and do they work?

This report reviews the data and research available to answer these questions, suggests areas that require additional research, and makes recommendations about policies for dealing with child and adolescent offenders.

DEFINITIONS USED IN THIS REPORT

The terms juvenile and delinquency (or delinquent ) have specific legal meanings in state and federal law. In this report, however, the panel uses the term juvenile 3 in its general sense, referring to anyone under the age of 18, unless otherwise specified. The terms young person, youngster, youth, and child and adolescent are used synonymously with juvenile. For many of the analyses of crime trends in Chapter 2 , juvenile refers to those between the ages of 10 and 17, because those under the age of 10 are seldom arrested. We use the term adolescent to refer specifically to young people between the ages of 13 and 17.

The term delinquency 4 in this report refers to acts by a juvenile that would be considered a crime if committed by an adult, as well as to actions that are illegal only because of the age of the offender. The report uses the term criminal delinquency to refer specifically to the former and status delinquency to refer specifically to the latter. Criminal delinquency offenses include, for example, homicide, robbery, assault, burglary, and theft. The term juvenile crime is used synonymously with criminal delinquency. Status delinquency offenses include truancy, running away from home, incorrigibility (i.e., habitually disobeying reasonable and lawful commands of a parent, guardian, or custodian; also referred to in various statutes as unruly, uncontrollable, or ungovernable behavior), and liquor law violations. In some states, status delinquents are referred to the child welfare or social service systems, while in others status delinquents are dealt with in the juvenile justice system.

PLAN OF THE REPORT

Following this introduction, Chapter 2 discusses the datasets commonly used to measure juvenile crime rates, examining the relative strengths and weaknesses of each. The chapter then discusses the trends in juvenile crime rates over the past several decades and how trends differ depending on the dataset employed. Differences in crime rates and

types of offense by sex and race are noted. The chapter ends with a discussion of forecasting juvenile crime rates.

Chapter 3 examines factors related to the development of antisocial behavior and delinquency. Several other recent reports (Loeber et al., 1998; Rutter et al., 1998) have extensively reviewed the research on many of these factors, particularly as they relate to the development of serious, violent offending. In this report we have attempted to supplement these other reports rather than duplicate their literature reviews. In addition, this report does not confine its discussion to serious, violent offending.

Chapters 4 and 5 cover responses to the problem of youth crime. Chapter 4 focuses on preventive interventions aimed at individuals, peer groups, and families, interventions delivered in schools, and community-based interventions. Chapter 5 describes the juvenile justice system process in the United States and discusses treatment and intervention programs delivered through the juvenile justice system.

Chapter 6 examines the issue of racial disparity in the juvenile justice system, discussing explanations that have been put forth to explain that disparity and the research support for those explanations.

The panel's conclusions and recommendations for research and policy can be found at the end of each chapter.

Even though youth crime rates have fallen since the mid-1990s, public fear and political rhetoric over the issue have heightened. The Columbine shootings and other sensational incidents add to the furor. Often overlooked are the underlying problems of child poverty, social disadvantage, and the pitfalls inherent to adolescent decisionmaking that contribute to youth crime. From a policy standpoint, adolescent offenders are caught in the crossfire between nurturance of youth and punishment of criminals, between rehabilitation and "get tough" pronouncements. In the midst of this emotional debate, the National Research Council's Panel on Juvenile Crime steps forward with an authoritative review of the best available data and analysis. Juvenile Crime, Juvenile Justice presents recommendations for addressing the many aspects of America's youth crime problem.

This timely release discusses patterns and trends in crimes by children and adolescents—trends revealed by arrest data, victim reports, and other sources; youth crime within general crime; and race and sex disparities. The book explores desistance—the probability that delinquency or criminal activities decrease with age—and evaluates different approaches to predicting future crime rates.

Why do young people turn to delinquency? Juvenile Crime, Juvenile Justice presents what we know and what we urgently need to find out about contributing factors, ranging from prenatal care, differences in temperament, and family influences to the role of peer relationships, the impact of the school policies toward delinquency, and the broader influences of the neighborhood and community. Equally important, this book examines a range of solutions:

• Prevention and intervention efforts directed to individuals, peer groups, and families, as well as day care-, school- and community-based initiatives.
• Intervention within the juvenile justice system.
• Role of the police.
• Processing and detention of youth offenders.
• Transferring youths to the adult judicial system.
• Residential placement of juveniles.

The book includes background on the American juvenile court system, useful comparisons with the juvenile justice systems of other nations, and other important information for assessing this problem.

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Juvenile Justice, Mental Health, and the Transition to Adulthood: A Review of Service System Involvement and Unmet Needs in the U.S

Kristyn zajac.

a Family Services Research Center, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, SC, USA

Ashli J. Sheidow

b Oregon Social Learning Center, Eugene, OR, USA

Maryann Davis

c Transitions Research and Training Center, Systems and Psychosocial Advances Research Center, Department of Psychiatry, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, MA, USA

Although adolescents are the primary focus of juvenile justice, a significant number of young people involved with this system are considered transition age youth (i.e., 16–25 years of age). The aim of this review is to summarize the specific needs of transition age youth with mental health conditions involved with the juvenile justice system, identify the multiple service systems relevant to this group, and offer recommendations for policies and practice. A comprehensive search strategy was used to identify and synthesize the literature. Findings highlight the paucity of research specific to transition age youth. Thus, we also summarized relevant research on justice-involved adolescents, with a focus evaluating its potential relevance in the context of the unique milestones of the transition age, including finishing one’s education, setting and working towards vocational goals, and transitioning from ones’ family of origin to more independent living situations. Existing programs and initiatives relevant to transition age youth with mental health conditions are highlighted, and nine specific recommendations for policy and practice are offered.

1. Introduction

Each year, more than 2 million children, adolescents, and young adults formally come into contact with the juvenile justice system in the U.S. ( Puzzanchera, 2009 ). The majority of these youth (65–70%) have at least one diagnosable mental health problem, and 20–25% have serious emotional problems ( Shufelt & Cocozza, 2006 ; Teplin, Abram, McClelland, Dulcan, & Mericle, 2002 ; Wasserman, McReynolds, Lucas, Fisher, & Santos, 2002 ). The current system for rehabilitation often fails to address or even presents barriers to meeting the multiple needs of such young people. Transition age youth are a particularly vulnerable subgroup in the juvenile justice system, as this age group has the highest rates of mental health problems ( Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration [SAMHSA], 2012 ) and also face multiple transitions in life roles during this developmental period. This paper provides an overview of service system issues for mental health practitioners, juvenile justice professionals, policymakers, and allied professionals whose work brings them in contact with transition age youth with mental health needs in the juvenile justice system.

Though the predominant focus of the juvenile justice system is on adolescents, a significant number of justice-involved youth fall into the developmental period known as the transition age, which refers to youth ages 16 through 25 years ( Davis & Vander Stoep, 1997 ). The number of transition age youth served by the juvenile justice system varies by state for two reasons. First, there is variability across states in the upper age of jurisdiction in the juvenile court—the age at which an individual who breaks the law would be processed in the juvenile versus adult court system. Figure 1 shows that the majority of states consider crimes committed through age 17 as juvenile offenses. Only a few states have an upper age of 16, and two currently have a limit of 15. Second, there is variability in the age at which youth are transferred from the juvenile to adult justice systems. Figure 2 shows that only a few state juvenile justice systems end their involvement with youth at age 18. It is more common for justice-involved youth to remain under juvenile jurisdiction through age 20, with some states allowing extension to age 24.

Upper age of original juvenile court jurisdiction, 2013.

Source: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. (2013). Statistical Briefing Book.

Statistics retrieved from http://www.ojjdp.gov/ojstatbb/structure_process/qa04101.asp?qaDate=2013

Extended age of juvenile court jurisdiction, 2013

Statistics retrieved from: http://www.ojjdp.gov/ojstatbb/structure_process/qa04106.asp?qaDate=2013&text=

Given the large number of transition age youth involved with the juvenile justice, it is important for this system to be well-informed about the significant changes in educational, vocational, and relational roles, including reduced family influence and changing social networks, inherent to this age group ( Arnett, 2000 ). This developmental period poses challenges for even the most well-adjusted youth as they make long-term decisions about careers and move from their family of origin to more independent living situations ( Institute of Medicine [IOM] and National Research Council [NRC], 2014 ). Normative transitions include completing school or vocational training, obtaining and maintaining gainful employment, developing a social network, and becoming a productive citizen. Success is determined by a complex interplay between youth, their families and neighborhoods, and available opportunities.

2. Search strategy

Several strategies were employed to reviewing the relevant literature, integrate findings, and identify areas for continued study. First, published papers were located through database searches of PsychINFO and PubMed for keywords, titles, abstracts, and text containing the words: a) “emerging adult,” or “transition age youth,” or “transitional youth” or “transitioning youth” or “young adult” or “adolescent” cross referenced with b) “mental health,” or “mental illness” or “mental disorder” and c) “juvenile justice” or “criminal justice” or “juvenile delinquency” or “criminal rehabilitation.” Next, the reference lists of relevant articles were reviewed to identify papers that might have been missed in the database searches. Preference was given to empirical papers published in peer-reviewed journals and, whenever possible, papers with the most recent and comprehensive data were summarized. Due to space limitations, not all papers identified as a result of this search are listed.

3. Mental health problems and other pitfalls of the transition age

The importance of this developmental period lies not only in key milestones but also in the risk for impediments. Rates of mental health problems peak during the transition age, and the majority of mental health disorders have onset by the early 20s ( Kessler et al., 2005 ; Kim-Cohen et al., 2003 ; SAMHSA, 2012 ). Past-year prevalence rates for mental health problems, excluding substance use disorders, are 29–40% between ages 18 and 25 ( Newman et al., 1996 ; SAMHSA, 2012 ). Serious mental illness (i.e., mental health disorders causing significant functional impairment) is less common (7.7%) but still more prevalent during the transition age than other developmental period ( SAMHSA, 2012 ). At the same time, utilization of mental health services declines sharply, presumably due to multiple barriers to care including healthcare coverage loss and transitions to adult service systems ( Copeland et al., 2015 ; Pottick et al., 2008 ). An important distinction for transition age youth is that a disruptive behavior disorder diagnosis allows minors to access services in the child mental health system, but adults presenting solely with a disruptive behavior disorder are typically denied coverage in adult systems ( Davis & Koroloff, 2006 ). Thus, transition age youth with primarily behavioral disorders often lose access to mental health services as they age out of child systems and into adult systems.

Similarly, transition age youth have the highest rates of problematic substance use and substance use disorders compared to other age groups ( Chassin, Flora, & King, 2004 ; Delucchi, Matzger, & Weisner, 2008 ; SAMSHA, 2009 ). A majority report lifetime alcohol (90%) and illicit drug use (61%; SAMSHA, 2008 ), and the past-year prevalence rate of substance use disorders increases from 9% for youth ages 12 to 17 to 21% for ages 18 to 25 ( SAMSHA, 2005 ).

For youth who struggle during the transition to adulthood, having multiple problems is the rule rather than the exception ( Osgood, Foster, & Courtney, 2010 ). Adversity during this developmental period can delay or derail the achievement of normative transitions. Youth struggling with mental health problems and juvenile justice involvement are at a disadvantage as they enter the transition to adulthood. Those at the highest risk for these types of setbacks are those from disadvantaged psychosocial backgrounds who have experienced multiple lifetime adversities ( Chung, Little, & Steinberg, 2005 ), including poverty, poor relationships with family members, school failure and/or dropout, negative peer groups, and a lack of adult role models. These histories of disadvantage do not provide resources necessary to overcome the substantial challenges faced by multi-problem transition age youth.

4. Transition age youth in the juvenile justice system

Transition age youth in the juvenile justice system are “the perfect storm” of the potential perils of this developmental period. First, mental health problems are common. The most common mental health disorders among youth in the juvenile justice system are disruptive behavior disorders (e.g., conduct disorder), anxiety disorders (e.g., posttraumatic stress disorder), and mood disorders (e.g., major depression) ( Skowyra & Cocozza, 2007 ). Further, many youth with mental health diagnoses have a co-occurring substance use disorder ( Armstrong & Costello, 2002 ). Due to a paucity of research on this age group, the majority of what is known about rates of mental health problems comes from adolescent studies. One study of youth entering non-residential juvenile justice settings (e.g., probation) estimated that 45% of boys and 50% of girls met diagnostic criteria for a mental health disorder ( Wasserman, McReynolds, Ko, Katz, & Carpenter, 2005 ). Studies of residential juvenile justice facilities show higher rates of 65–70% ( Shufelt & Cocozza, 2006 ; Teplin et al., 2002 ; Wasserman et al., 2002 ). Even when behavioral disorders (e.g., substance abuse, conduct disorder) were not considered, 46% of youth in residential justice settings met criteria for a mental health disorder ( Shufelt & Cocozza, 2006 ).

Like non-justice-involved youth who have a mental health condition, comorbidity rates are high for justice-involved youth. An estimated 79% of youth with one mental health disorder also meet criteria for at least one other disorder, and more than 60% meet criteria for a substance use disorder ( Shufelt & Cocozza, 2006 ). Co-occurring conditions predict worse outcomes; for example, youth with co-occurring behavioral problems and emotional problems are at elevated risk for recidivism ( Cottle, Lee, & Heibrun, 2001 ; Hoeve, McReynolds, & Wasserman, 2013 ) and committing violent offenses during young adulthood ( Copeland, Miller-Johnson, Keeler, Angold, & Costello, 2007 ). Thus, juvenile justice programs are responsible for the care of a large number of youth who have complex mental health needs ( Cocozza & Skowyra, 2000 ).

Successful transitions to adulthood often depend on financial and emotional support from families beyond adolescence ( IOM & NRC, 2014 ; Settersten, Furstenberg, & Rumbaut, 2008 ), an advantage many justice-involved youth do not have. For example, justice-involved youth also have high rates of involvement with the child welfare system, indicating family disruption and discord. Over 60% of “serious offenders” in juvenile detention had a history of child welfare involvement due to maltreatment ( Langrehr, 2011 ). In one study, approximately 16% of youth who had a history of placement in foster care come into contact with the justice system during adolescence ( Ryan & Testa, 2005 ). In the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-being, 16% of young adults with a history of child welfare contact during adolescence had been arrested in the previous year, and approximately 45% were assessed to be at risk for some type of mental health problem ( Southerland, Casanueva, & Ringeisen, 2009 ). It is important to note that, in many states, youth cannot be concurrently involved in child welfare and juvenile justice; thus, research usually focuses on either past child welfare involvement of justice involved individuals or subsequent justice system involvement of child welfare youth. Studies on the overlap between child welfare and juvenile justice involvement highlight the lack of “natural” supports for youth involved with these systems as they transition to adulthood.

5. Critical issues facing justice-involved transition age youth with mental health problems

Involvement with multiple systems is the rule rather than the exception for youth in the juvenile justice system, particularly those with mental health problems. For example, at least one in five youth involved in community-based mental health systems also has juvenile justice involvement ( Cauffman, Scholle, Mulvey, & Kelleher, 2005 ; Rosenblatt, Rosenblatt, & Biggs, 2000 ; Vander Stoep, Evens, & Taub, 1997 ). Table 1 provides an overview of the service systems with which justice-involved youth typically interact, as well as key issues related to each system. As noted in a recent report from the Institute of Medicine and National Research Council, current policies and programs for this age group are often fragmented, inadequately coordinated, and not designed for their specific developmental needs ( IOM & NRC, 2014 ). Navigating these separate systems can be incredibly challenging for a young person facing multiple psychosocial problems.

Relevant Service Systems for Justice-Involved Transition Age Youth

Interacting with multiple providers can be overwhelming to youth, particularly due to the lack of seamless interplay between systems ( Davis, Green, & Hoffman, 2009 ) and youths’ lack of past experience with adult-oriented systems (e.g., vocational rehabilitation). Poor communication means that goal setting and interventions across agencies can be at odds with one another. In a study of collaboration between child welfare and juvenile justice, two factors predicted successful coordination of mental health services: (a) having a single agency held accountable for the youth’s well-being (i.e., either child welfare or juvenile justice) and (b) interagency sharing of administrative data ( Chuang & Wells, 2010 ). Thus, effective coordination of care and agency accountability is necessary to ensure youth do not fall through the cracks.

6. Issues specific to detained and incarcerated transition age youth and reentry

Among youth processed and adjudicated delinquent by the juvenile justice system in 2009, 27% were placed in residential settings, 60% were placed on probation, and 13% received other sanctions ( Knoll & Sickmund, 2012 ). Thus, incarcerated youth make up a significant minority (27%) of the juvenile justice population. Many of the estimated 200,000 juveniles and young adults ages 24 and under returning from incarceration each year will face reentry during their transition to adulthood ( Mears & Travis, 2004 ). One study found that only 31% of youth were engaged in either school or work 12 months after release from correctional facilities ( Bullis, Yovanoff, Mueller, & Havel, 2002 ). This is likely in part due to low high school completion rates and lack of work experience during time spent in a locked facility. The situation is compounded by the return to former neighborhoods and peer groups that may foster criminal behavior. Reentry programs have been primarily developed and studied with adult populations; thus, little is known about their effectiveness with youth ( Farrington, Loeber, & Howell, 2012 ).

Following reentry, transition age youth display low rates of engagement with community-based services such as mental health treatment and vocational rehabilitation. In one study, only 35% of juvenile offenders had been engaged in such services during the 6 months following reentry ( Chung, Schubert, & Mulvey, 2007 ). Primary barriers include insufficient healthcare coverage, inability to navigate multiple systems, and, for some, lack of service providers in their communities. Transition age youth often qualify only for adult-oriented care that is not suited to their developmental needs. Upon reentry, transition age youth often face the perception and reality of having “fallen behind” same-age peers and hopelessness about their ability to catch up.

Although detained and incarcerated youth could be considered a “captive audience,” the justice system is currently not well equipped to provide effective mental health treatment to the large numbers who require it ( U.S. Department of Justice, 2005 ). One large-scale study found that only about 15% of youth with a significant mental health problem received treatment while detained ( Teplin, Abram, McClelland, Washburn, & Pikus, 2005 ). The involvement of family members in mental health interventions, a key factor in successful treatment, is rarely available to incarcerated youth, limiting both treatment effectiveness and maintenance of gains. Many treatments in correctional facilities are delivered in a group format, aggregating delinquent peers – a strategy shown to have iatrogenic effects on group members due to “deviance training” or the learning of new delinquent behaviors from deviant peers ( Dishion, McCord, & Poulin, 1999 ; Mathys, Hyde, Shaw, & Born, 2013 ). There is also a lack of continuity of care for these youth as they transition from treatment providers in detention centers to those in their communities. Finally, after release, youth face the same barriers to mental health treatment as many of their peers, including availability of providers in their neighborhoods, transportation problems, and healthcare coverage, among others.

7. Evidence-based and promising practices and policies

There is little information on evidence-based practices and policies specifically for justice-involved transition age youth with mental health problems ( Hoffman, Heflinger, Athay, & Davis, 2009 ; IOM & NRC, 2014 ). Most of what is known is extrapolated from studies with adult or adolescent justice-involved populations. A variety of treatments have been well validated to target delinquency among justice-involved adolescents (e.g., Multisystemic Therapy, Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care; for review, see Henggeler & Sheidow, 2012 ), but far fewer are specifically designed to meet the unique developmental needs of transition age youth or to address mental health problems among justice-involved youth. Evidence-based treatments for adolescents can be adapted for use with transition age youth; however, they often rely heavily on parental involvement, an approach that may be less effective or feasible with transition age youth, who may be either living independently, with peers, or otherwise disengaged from their family of origin. Thus, we summarize what may be applicable to transition age youth while identifying areas in need of further investigation.

7.1. Multisystemic therapy

Multisystemic Therapy (MST) is a well-established, intensive, community-based treatment for delinquent behavior among justice-involved adolescents ( Henggeler, Schoenwald, Borduin, Rowland, & Cunningham, 2009 ). Two adaptations of MST are reviewed. First, MST was adapted for justice-involved transition age youth with serious mental health conditions (i.e., Multisystemic Therapy for Emerging Adults [MST-EA]). MST-EA integrates MST principles, evidence-based mental health treatments, and psychiatric support for medication monitoring. In addition, MST-EA therapists target concerns specific to transition age youth (e.g., educational/vocational goals, independent housing). A pilot study of MST-EA found reduced recidivism, mental health symptoms, and association with antisocial peers ( Davis, Sheidow, & McCart, 2014 ), but additional research is needed. Second, Family Integrated Transitions (FIT) is an MST adaptation for youth with co-occurring mental health and substance use disorders transitioning home following incarceration ( Trupin, Kerns, Walker, DeRoberts, & Stewart, 2011 ). FIT combines MST, dialectical behavior therapy, parent training, and motivational enhancement implemented 2–3 months prior to release through 4–6 months post-release. A pilot study found reductions in felony (but not overall) recidivism among 12- to 19-year-olds ( Trupin et al., 2011 ). However, FIT was designed for adolescents rather than transition age youth. Thus, there is a strong emphasis on parental involvement, which differs from MST-EA and may be less developmentally appropriate for transition age youth.

7.2. Foster care

Youth aging out of the foster care system are at particularly high risk for criminal justice involvement. However, recent studies have shown that extending foster care beyond age 18 can reduce arrests during young adulthood ( Lee, Courtney, & Hook, 2012 ; Lee, Courtney, & Tajima, 2014 ). Thus, two specific policies and programs related to foster care are relevant for transition age youth. The first is the John H. Chafee Foster Care Independent Living Program, which promotes successful transition to independent living for youth up to age 21. Funds can be used for housing, educational/vocational training, and mental health treatment ( Foster & Gifford, 2005 ). One pitfall is that many states have had difficulty providing comprehensive and well-coordinated services under this program due to limitations in available federal funds ( Collins, 2004 ; Davison & Burris, 2014 ). A second resource is Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care (MTFC), a home-based family treatment provided as an alternative to group homes and residential settings ( Chamberlain, 2003 ). MTFC utilizes specialized foster homes where caregivers are trained to manage delinquent behaviors until youth can transition back to their families. MTFC also provides individual and family therapy, educational programming, and psychiatric care and is effective in reducing delinquent behaviors, justice system contacts, substance use, depression, and teen pregnancy ( Chamberlain, Leve, & DeGarmo, 2007 ; Kerr, DeGarmo, Leve, & Chamberlain, 2014 ; Smith, Chamberlain, & Eddy, 2010 ). Though only evaluated with adolescents, MTFC may prove to be useful if adapted for transition age youth, especially given the push to extend foster care services through the transition age and the focus of MTFC on transitioning youth from foster care back to their communities.

7.3. Wraparound services

Wraparound services use a system of care philosophy, emphasizing maintenance of youth in the least restrictive environment through intensive coordination of multiple services ( Bruns et al., 2004 ). The Connections program in Washington state is one of the most rigorously studied wraparound programs for youth up to age 18 with mental health problems ( Pullman et al., 2006 ). Each family is assigned to a team of professionals, including a mental health care coordinator, a probation counselor, a family assistance specialist for emotional support and practical assistance, and a juvenile services associate for mentoring and aid with the treatment plan. Youth in this program were less likely to recidivate in general and have felony offenses in particular, and they served less detention time than comparison youth ( Pullman et al., 2006 ). Similar programs have also shown promise in reducing recidivism ( Anderson, Wright, Kooreman, Mohr, & Russell, 2003 ; Kamradt, 2000 ), though one program produced positive effects on educational outcomes and police contacts but not on arrests or incarceration ( Carney & Buttell, 2003 ). However, the comparative effectiveness of the wraparound approaches compared to case management for reduction of mental health symptoms has not been established (see Bruns et al., 2015 ). Moreover, evaluations have not focused on older transition age youth (i.e., over age 17).

7.4. Diversion programs

Diversion programs provide alternatives to formal justice system sanctions, typically for first-time offenders, and often provide treatment in lieu of punishment (see Chapin & Griffin, 2005 for a review). One meta-analysis did not find significant reductions in recidivism, even for diversion programs that specifically targeted mental health needs ( Schwalbe, Gearing, MacKenzie, Brewer, & Ibrahim, 2012 ). However, when evidence-based interventions for adolescent delinquent behaviors (e.g., MST, Functional Family Therapy) were included in diversion plans, results were promising. Similar to these findings, preliminary results from Ohio’s Behavioral Health Juvenile Justice program suggest that a diversion program that provides evidence- and community-based behavioral health treatment is effective in improving both delinquency and behavioral health outcomes ( Kretschmar, Butcher, Flannery, & Singer, 2014 ). Thus, diversion programs may be effective when evidence-based treatments are available in youth’s communities. Further, diversion programs reduce time in locked settings, a contributor to developmental delays ( Chung et al., 2005 ). For these reasons, diversion programs should be tailored to meet the needs of transition age youth with mental health problems and examined as alternatives to formal sanctions.

7.5. Reentry and aftercare programs

Reentry and aftercare programs are initiated either during the transition from incarceration to the community or soon after reentry and aim to reduce recidivism through provision and coordination of services. Some treatments, such as Multisystemic Therapy, can be utilized for reentry services, but some programs are specifically tailored to this transition. In a meta-analysis of specific reentry programs for justice-involved adolescents and young adults (but not specifically youth with mental health needs), a small but positive effect on recidivism was identified ( James, Stams, Asscher, De Roo, & van der Laan, 2013 ). Results suggested a particular benefit for older youth, and two of the reviewed programs were designed specifically for transition age youth. The Boston Reentry Initiative (BRI) involved individualized transition plans (e.g., acquisition of housing and employment, mental health treatment) and frequent contact with a mentor ( Braga, Piehl, & Hureau, 2009 ). BRI lowered re-arrest rates for young adults with violent criminal histories. The second program, Lifeskills’95, also incorporated developmentally appropriate services, including job and educational resources, skills training, and substance use services. Lifeskills’95 was superior to usual services for recidivism, employment, substance abuse, and family relationship outcomes ( Josi & Sechrest, 1999 ).

Another promising reintegration program is Multidimensional Family Therapy–Detention to Community (MDFT-DTC) ( Liddle, Dakof, Henderson, & Rowe, 2011 ). MDFT is a family-based intervention originally designed for adolescent substance use. The DTC adaptation extended MDFT to justice-involved youth with substance abuse and related emotional or behavioral disorders. In a pilot study, MDFT-DTC showed promise with regards to feasibility, implementation, and treatment engagement ( Liddle et al., 2011 ). However, like other family-based interventions that rely predominantly on family therapy and parenting techniques, MDFT-DTC cannot be fully delivered in the absence of involved caregivers, which may inhibit its application with transition age youth.

7.6. Coordination of care programs

Although coordination of care is often included as part of reentry and aftercare programs, surprisingly few programs focus on youth sentenced to probation. However, one such program, Project Connect, aims to link juvenile probationers with mental health and substance use services ( Wasserman et al., 2009 ). Features include cooperative agreements between probation and mental health, facilitated mental health referrals, systematic mental health screening, and training for probation officers. In a sample of young probationers (mean age 14), this program successfully increased access to mental health services. Although it has been studied only with adolescents, Project Connect is an example of how to increase interagency collaboration, an outcome sorely needed for transition age youth.

8. Domain-specific services

There are also some effective programs developed within specific domains relevant to justice-involved transition age youth. None of these interventions alone are likely to be sufficient to ensure a successful transition to adulthood for justice-involved youth, and coordination and individualization of such services are needed to ensure effectiveness. However, they represent potential building blocks of successful programs for this age group.

8.1. Mental health treatment

Little is known about the effectiveness of evidence-based mental health treatments in justice settings, and such treatments are rarely available to justice-involved youth (see Sukhodolsky & Ruchkin, 2006 for a review). Although this may reflect barriers to disseminating evidence-based treatments in general, the justice system presents unique challenges. For example, by definition, justice-involved youth with mental health diagnoses have multiple psychosocial problems, and evidence-based treatments designed for single disorders are often insufficient. The Comprehensive Community Mental Health Services (CCMHS) for Children and Their Families Program, administered by SAMHSA and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, aims to address this problem among youth (up to age 21) with mental health problems through coordinating systems of care ( SAMHSA, 2010 ). In a large-scale evaluation, CCMHS improved functional impairment, school performance, mental health service utilization, arrest rates, and delinquency ( SAMHSA, 2010 ). Importantly, 57% of these youth had conduct problems, lending support for CCMHS’s potential for justice-involved youth. Evaluations of communities implementing CCMHS have shown increased availability of evidence-based mental health services and improved service delivery systems.

SAMHSA has also funded demonstration projects for transition age youth. In 2002, the Partnerships for Youth Transition program funded five sites to develop transition support systems for youth (up to age 24) with serious emotional disturbance. This cross-site evaluation showed moderate improvements in employment and education outcomes, but mixed results for justice system involvement and substance use ( Haber, Karpur, Deschenes, & Clark, 2008 ). Another program, the Emerging Adult Initiative, emphasized greater system change and policy work and funded seven sites in 2009. This program is still underway, but a preliminary report suggests positive results ( SAMHSA, 2013 ). In 2014, SAMHSA funded 17 sites with their Now is the Time – Healthy Transitions program. This is similar to the Emerging Adult Initiative, but with a stronger emphasis on outreach to unidentified or unserved transition-age youth with or at risk of serious mental health conditions. These projects may develop into resources for transition age youth in the juvenile justice system.

8.2. Substance abuse treatment

There are a handful of substance use treatments with a strong evidence base for adolescents and/or adults. These include family-based treatments (including MST and MDFT), contingency management, motivational interviewing, and cognitive behavioral approaches, as well as treatments combining these approaches (see Hogue, Henderson, Ozechowski, & Robbins, 2014 for a review). Less is known about the effectiveness of these treatments for transition age youth, particularly those with co-occurring mental health problems ( Sheidow, McCart, Zajac, & Davis, 2012 ). For example, although family involvement is an important predictor of positive treatment outcomes in adolescent samples, it is less clear how to involve families of transition age youth in developmentally appropriate ways.

8.3. Educational and vocational supports

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) has important implications for youth with special education needs. IDEA-mandated individualized education programming requires transition planning for higher education and employment. Further, special education services can continue through age 21 for youth seeking a diploma. However, services are not consistently and effectively implemented and can be poorly suited for special education related to emotional or behavioral disorders ( Geneen & Powers, 2006 ; Wagner & Davis, 2006 ).

A few evidence-based interventions have been developed to support secondary education for youth with psychiatric disabilities ( Rogers, Kash-MacDonald, & Maru, 2010 ). For example, Check and Connect aims to increase educational engagement through monitoring of academic performance, building of problem-solving skills, and provision of a trained mentor who partners with the family, school, and community. This intervention has been shown to improve academic performance and reduce disciplinary referrals and drop out ( Maynard, Kjellstrand, & Thompson, 2014 ; Sinclair, Christensen, & Thurlow, 2005 ). Jump On Board for Success (JOBS) provides developmentally tailored wraparound services focused on career development ( Clark, Pschorr, Wells, Curtis, & Tighe, 2004 ). JOBS coordinates wraparound care and supported employment for youth (16 to 22) with serious emotional disturbance involved with the juvenile justice system or adult corrections. The program improved engagement in school and/or employment from 23% at baseline to 96% at graduation. RENEW (Rehabilitation, Empowerment, Natural Supports, Education, and Work) was developed for youth with emotional and behavioral disorders to provide an individualized and comprehensive planning and support process focused on high school completion, career development, employment, and post-high school activities such as independent living, education and training, and community inclusion ( Hagner, Cheney, & Malloy, 1999 ). A pilot study found promising effects on employment and graduation rates, and a larger trial is currently underway. Finally, Individualized Placement and Support (IPS) is an evidence-based employment intervention for adults with mental illness. Across four studies, individuals receiving IPS had almost double the employment rate and about triple the number of weeks employed compared to controls ( Bond, Drake, & Becker, 2012 ). However, young adults in IPS were not employed for most weeks and averaged fewer than 20 work hours per week.

Guideposts for Success is an evidence-informed handbook developed by the National Collaborative on Workforce and Disability for Youth (2005 ) to provide guidance on support services for transition from school to work. The guideposts are developmentally appropriate for transition age youth, including work-based experiences, youth empowerment, family involvement, system linkages, and Social Security Administration waivers and benefits counseling. In a multi-site evaluation, youth in programs that delivered more hours of employment services had significantly more work hours and higher wages than control groups. However, there were no significant differences between participants in Guideposts for Success and the control group at the site that targeted youth with serious emotional disturbances ( Wittenburg, Mann, & Thompkins, 2013 ), highlighting the need for additional research.

The National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR) funds two research and training centers relevant to transition age youth: focusing on (a) educational and vocational supports for transition age youth with serious mental health concerns ( http://labs.umassmed.edu/transitionsRTC/ ), and (b) successful transitions for youth with mental health conditions ( http://www.pathwaysrtc.pdx.edu/ ). These centers have developed multiple interventions for this age group, including MST-EA described previously. For example, the Supported Employment and Supported Education for Emerging Adults program is a vocational support program for youth (16 to 21), adapted from the Individual Placement and Support model described above, that provides educational and vocational services in coordination with clinical services ( Ellison et al., 2015 ). This model is augmented by same-age peers who provide vocational mentorship. The Better Futures Program coordinates care through individualized coaching, peer support, and connection to community resources to support postsecondary education among transition age youth with mental health conditions in foster care ( Geenen et al., 2015 ). Evaluations of these programs are underway.

8.4. Healthcare

The justice system provides many youth with their first access to much-needed healthcare ( Golzari, Hunt, & Anoshiravani, 2006 ; Rogers, Pumariega, Atkins, & Cuffe, 2006 ). This is particularly important given high rates of sexually transmitted infections in this population. For example, transition age youth have the highest incidence of HIV and the poorest adherence to medication regimens ( MacDonell, Naar-King, Murphy, Parsons, & Harper, 2010 ; Metsch et al., 2008 ). Young adults with chronic conditions also frequently face barriers to care including decreased parental involvement, a shift from pediatric to adult settings, and the loss of healthcare coverage ( MacDonell et al., 2010 ). Incarcerated youth also present with significant health needs ( Bradley & Kalfs, 2003 ; Feinstein et al., 1998 ). One study found that the majority of juvenile correctional facilities provided health screenings at admission, crisis management, and access to psychotropic medication management, but only 68% provided outpatient psychotherapy and fewer provided other types of mental health services ( Pajer, Kelleher, Gupta. Rolls, & Gardner, 2007 ). Despite high rates of medication management, reentry planning is needed to ensure continued healthcare access after discharge. This is particularly important for those whose health care coverage will potentially shift due to attaining adult status ( IOM & NRC, 2014 ).

8.5. Housing and transportation

Obtaining and maintaining independent housing is a significant challenge for many transition age youth. For low-income youth, housing subsidies are in short supply and have long waitlists. One solution is for juvenile justice or mental health agencies to develop collaborations with public housing agencies to allow rapid access to housing options and assistance ( Koyanagi & Alfano, 2013 ). Transportation can pose a similar challenge. Youth must be mobile to access needed services to attend multiple weekly appointments, and service providers might not be located in close proximity to one another. Youth often lack the financial resources to have independent transportation and rely on family members, friends, or public transportation. This barrier is more pronounced in rural areas where there are greater distances between providers and public transportation is not available. There is a lack of programs to address these problems.

8.6. Pregnancy and parenting

High rates of risky sexual behaviors also put justice-involved females at risk for pregnancy and early parenthood. In a study of female adolescents (ages 13–17) involved in both the juvenile justice and child welfare systems, between 22% and 30% reported a pregnancy during their lifetime ( Kerr et al., 2009 ). This number undoubtedly increases as youth reach transition age, with a larger number of young women becoming parents. Researchers have recognized the need for gender-specific programming in the juvenile justice system to address needs related to pregnancy and parenting ( Bloom, Owen, Deschenes, & Rosenbaum, 2002 ), but evidence-based programs are not currently available.

For young mothers and fathers, parenting can be an overwhelming task, and intensive services are often necessary to ensure support for the youth and her child. One such program is the Nurse-Family Partnership (NFP), an evidence-based home visitation program that provides services during and following pregnancy for low-income, first-time mothers ( Olds, 2006 ). NFP has been shown to improve parent-child interactions, maternal well-being, and vocational outcomes, and reduce risk for subsequent pregnancies. An augmentation of NFP for mothers with mental health problems (i.e., depression, partner violence) has been developed but has not yet been evaluated ( Boris et al., 2006 ). Although not specifically evaluated with justice-involved mothers, NFP has the potential to be a helpful tool for this group.

9. Policy and practice recommendations

Current policies and programs are not sufficient in addressing the needs of justice-involved transition age youth with mental health problems. The following policy recommendations are consistent with those put forth for transition age youth with serious mental health conditions ( Davis et al., 2009 ). An overarching recommendation is that federal policies, including IDEA and the Chafee Act, are fully implemented in the juvenile justice system (see Gagnon & Richards, 2008 ; Koyanagi & Alfano, 2013 ). Most policies relevant to juvenile justice are at the state rather than federal level; however, two federal programs provide funding that can be used by juvenile justice programs: federal block grants and Title V Local Community Prevention Incentive Grants. Federal block grants currently only fund programs up to age 18, precluding their use for older youth in juvenile justice systems. It is recommended that federal block grants, as well as other federal policies that set upper age limits of 18 for “child” programs, extend the upper age limit minimally to age 21, and ideally to age 25. The Title V Local Community Prevention Incentive Grants program is not age restrictive but is highly competitive, making it difficult for many local programs to secure funding.

In general, we recommend that an extension of the positive youth development and developmentally appropriate framework of the most recent juvenile justice reform be maintained at the upper age limits of juvenile justice services ( National Research Council, 2013 ). In addition, we offer nine specific suggestions to promote systemic reform:

9.1. Recommendation 1. Rehabilitation versus punishment

There is a continued need to encourage a rehabilitative, rather than punitive, approach to transition age youth in the juvenile justice system. The abrupt change from rehabilitation to punishment on or around the 18th birthday is arbitrary and has not been effective at deterring future crime. Policymakers are encouraged to extend programs for juvenile justice to cover the full range of the transition to adulthood (through age 25), as youth in this age group are likely to be developmentally more similar to adolescents than adults. Specific policies should be made for the young adults in this age group; it is recommended that these policies take a rehabilitative approach similar to the juvenile justice system while incorporating age-appropriate supports, including educational, vocational, mental health, and substance abuse interventions.

9.2. Recommendation 2. Mandatory transition planning in the juvenile justice system

Transition planning should be required for youth ages 16 or older in the juvenile justice system. It is already a requirement for youth who receive special education services and those in foster care (through the Fostering Connections Act), and the educational and child welfare systems have models for how to implement such planning. These plans should include provisions for transitions from child to adult systems of care (e.g., mental health) and also assess and plan for needs in key areas crucial to success in adulthood (e.g., education, vocation, independent living). Plans should be integrated with existing transition plans for youth in foster care and/or special education services. Stakeholders from key community agencies (e.g., mental health, child welfare, vocational rehabilitation, school districts) should have input in transition planning. Specifically, coordination with other systems should be attained through memoranda of understanding to achieve the commitment needed for ensuring appropriate services.

9.3. Recommendation 3. Coordination of care across service systems

There is a clear need for improvements in coordination of care among the many service systems involved with transition age youth in the juvenile justice system. Adult service systems, including adult mental health and vocational rehabilitation, must be included. Policies aimed at improving coordination of care should hold agencies accountable for outcomes to ensure youth are meeting the goals of each system. The most pervasively practiced model of coordination of care for youth with mental health conditions is the wraparound approach, though not all wraparound teams specialize in juvenile justice populations. Policies that support full implementation of wraparound, extend wraparound to age 21, and require relevant agency involvement in the oversight of services should facilitate care coordination. A practice model for coordination of care is Project Connect (described above), though it would require careful modification specific to transition age youth. If possible, service providers across systems should be condensed under one roof or in close physical vicinity. Increasing the convenience of attendance can significantly improve youth engagement. Alternatively, providers could be allowed to meet with youth in their homes or communities.

9.4. Recommendation 4. Access to evidence-based mental health treatments

One barrier to evidence-based mental health treatment is lack of health care coverage. Various Affordable Care Act (ACA) provisions increase availability of coverage for young adults but there are reasons to be skeptical about the effectiveness of such reforms for transition age youth with substantial mental health morbidity. Studies of health care reform in Massachusetts found increased enrollment for young adults in Medicaid and healthcare exchanges ( Gettens, Mitra, Henry, & Himmelstein, 2011 ; Long, Yemane, & Stockley, 2010 ) but worse enrollment among adults with behavioral health problems ( Capoccia, Croze, Cohen, & O’Brien, 2013 ). The effects of ACA on health care coverage should be monitored among vulnerable youth. In addition, improving coordination of care and linkage to services are important but will only be effective if quality mental health services are available in young adults’ communities.

9.5. Recommendation 5. Training for professionals who work with transition age youth

Professionals, including those in the juvenile justice, mental health, and vocational rehabilitation systems, must be trained on the specific needs of this population. Services provided by adult or child systems of care often are not appropriately tailored to meet the unique needs of this group. When there is a large enough pool of justice-involved transition age youth in a given area to sustain it, it also is recommended that a specialized group of probation officers are trained to work with transition age youth.

9.6. Recommendation 6. Additional research and program development

Additional work on mental health treatments and transition services is needed for transition age youth in juvenile justice settings. Current evidence-based programs for adolescents and adults can be adapted for this age group, but thorough efficacy evaluations are needed.

9.7 Recommendation 7. Assessment of a wider range of transition-related outcomes

The majority of existing programs have focused on outcomes related to recidivism and have neglected other important outcomes for this group, including mental health and vocational/educational outcomes. Assessments of these outcomes further into adulthood (i.e., up to 5 years after aging out of the juvenile justice system), are also needed.

9.8 Recommendation 8. Smaller caseloads

High caseloads preclude the individualized intensive services required for justice-involved youth with mental health problems. This problem is common to mental health, probation, child welfare, and vocational rehabilitation providers. Thus, the recommendation is to reduce caseloads for providers working with complex multi-problem youth.

9.9. Recommendation 9. Promotion of appropriate involvement of families

As youth transition to adulthood, they often require the support of their family; however, family involvement is likely to decrease as youth progress into adulthood. The aim should be to move youth progressively into “the driver’s seat” while encouraging support from family members. In addition, mentors and other key members of the youth’s social network can be leveraged to promote successful transitions to adulthood. This is likely to be a helpful framework across all service systems.

10. Conclusion

Youth with both juvenile justice involvement and mental health problems are a vulnerable group, particularly during the transition to adulthood. The multiple problems faced by such youth present barriers to meeting normative developmental milestones of this age, including vocational and educational success, development of stable relationships, and maturation into productive adults. Current policies and practices in the juvenile justice system are not well suited to meet the multiple needs of these youth and, at times, can exacerbate existing problems. However, given the high prevalence of youth with mental health problems involved with the juvenile justice system, providers and policymakers have the opportunity to impact large numbers of vulnerable youth through the implementation of effective programming.

Substantial changes in the juvenile justice and mental health systems are required to ensure successful transitions to adulthood. An overarching theme is the need for developmentally appropriate policies and interventions, taking into account factors that differentiate this age group from both adolescents and adults. A key to overcoming barriers to services is the effective coordination of the various systems that transition age youth must navigate, and providers must be well versed in the specific needs of this age group. Although policies and programs that support these principles are rare, initiatives have been developed that may serve as a springboard for continued policy and program development for this important population.

• We summarized the developmental and service needs of justice-involved transition age youth with mental health problems.
• Transition age youth are a unique subgroup within the juvenile justice system.
• There are high rates of mental health problems among this group.
• We highlighted areas in need of further research.
• We provided nine specific policy and practice recommendations for this group.

Acknowledgments

This publication was supported by funding from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA, through American Institutes for Research), the National Institute on Drug Abuse, National Institutes of Health (Grant K23DA034879) and by the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research, U.S. Department of Education (Grant H133B090018).

The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the SAMSHA, NIH, or U.S. Department of Education.

Publisher's Disclaimer: This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof before it is published in its final citable form. Please note that during the production process errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain.

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Delinquency Cases in Juvenile Court, 2020

This fact sheet published by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention and the National Institute of Justice presents statistics about and trends noted in delinquency cases in juvenile court in 2020.

This fact sheet published by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention and the National Institute of Justice presents statistics about and trends noted in delinquency cases in juvenile court in 2020. In 2020, juvenile courts in the United States handled 508,400 delinquency cases that involved youth charged with criminal law violations, 28% less than the number of cases handled in 2019. From 2005 through 2020, the number of delinquency cases declined 69%, with decreases in all four offense categories: property offense cases and public order offense cases (down 73% each), drug law violation cases (down 69%), and person offense cases (down 59%). In 2020, person offense cases accounted for the largest proportion (35%) of the delinquency caseload, followed by property offense cases (32%), public order offense cases (23%), and drug offense cases (11%). The statistics are discussed in terms of gender, race, age, and procedural issues relating to detention, intake decision, waiver to criminal court, and adjudication and disposition are also discussed. A case flow chart is also provided.

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Related topics, similar publications.

• Highlights From the 2020 Juvenile Residential Facility Census
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• March 1, 2024 | VOL. 19, NO. 3 CURRENT ISSUE pp.2-13

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Mental Health and the Juvenile Justice System: Where Has History Taken Us?

• Divya Kiran Chhabra , M.D.

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Juvenile justice is a system designed to navigate youth crime via police, court, and correctional involvement, but history has shaped and given this system the responsibility to also function as a vast mental health care system. Understanding this system’s past helps to highlight changes that must be made for its future.

Historical Context

From ancient Greek civilization to English Common Law, the precedents to the American system, youth offenders were punished as adults, and although this has largely changed, a gray area clouds the way children are viewed in criminal justice today ( 1 ). In the early 1800s, with the introduction of child psychodynamics in America, the field recognized that children do not have the same moral capacity as adults ( 2 ). Childhood consists of unique developmental stages, including adolescence ( 3 ). As child poverty rates increased during the 1800s, reform movements decriminalized delinquency by removing youths from the adult justice system to “treat” youthful offenders rather than punish them ( 4 ). Children were placed with families in rural areas, houses of refuge, reform schools, and group cottages ( 5 ).

Juvenile Justice in the United States

In the 1960s, due to rising crime rates, the juvenile justice system shifted from a community-based system to a punitive-based system, straying from the original vision ( 6 ). Over the next 30 years, harsher punishments were given in an endeavor to prevent homicides, as part of the “get tough” movement and the “war on drugs” during President Ronald Reagan’s administration ( 7 ). Simultaneously, public mental health services for children decreased, and this rerouted youths into the criminal justice system (including the adult system), which is now primarily comprised of correctional facilities ( 8 ).

Until the 1990s, reliable studies on mental health statistics in the juvenile justice system were scarce ( 9 , 10 ). Federally mandated research and investigations on mental health services in the system were conducted for the first time in 1998, revealing inadequate mental health care and screenings in several states ( 11 ). It was also during this time that recognition of the mental health needs for all youths grew, and leaders realized that previous estimates of the prevalence of “emotional disturbance” in this population were low ( 12 , 13 ). Lastly, until this point, a stark disparity existed in the legal mental health rights between youths and adults in the criminal system ( 14 ). Although the need for large-scale change in the punitive system was acknowledged during this time, the problems were deeply rooted and still affect our system today.

Clearly, psychiatry and the juvenile criminal justice system are historically intertwined. According to the Northwestern Juvenile Project, a longitudinal study that began in 1998 in Cook County, Illinois, 66% of males and 74% of females arrested and detained in the area had a mental disorder, with one in 10 having thoughts of suicide or a prior suicide attempt. Ninety-three percent of youths in this study had experienced physical, sexual, or verbal trauma, and 47% of females and 51% of males suffered from a substance use disorder ( 15 ). Similar results have been replicated in other studies, including a national study administered by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention that surveyed more than 7,000 youths in over 200 centers nationally ( 16 ). These findings are startling considering that 1.3–2.2 million youths were arrested annually between 2012 and 2016 ( 17 ). According to the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, although the juvenile crime rate has decreased nationally, the rate of children and adolescents processed in the system yearly has significantly increased since 1985, and an increased proportion of cases result in detention ( 18 ). Research has shown that long-term confinement in the justice system alone is detrimental to mental health ( 19 ). This is distressing, since those entering the system have higher rates of mental disorders to begin with ( 15 ).

Mental health screening, assessment, and treatment became mandatory in the early 2000s ( 20 ). However, a gap persisted between policy and implementation, and these policies alone are not an adequate resolution for an incredibly entrenched and multifactorial disparity. In 2006, the Federal Advisory Committee on Juvenile Justice reported that lack of appropriate staffing, lack of administrative capacity, insufficient research, heavy caseloads for social workers, lack of wraparound services, and lack of vigilant monitoring of adherence to mental health guidelines and policies are all barriers to successful implementation ( 21 ).

Conclusions

More recently, the system has been working toward a more rehabilitative and collaborative, versus punitive, approach, and, slowly, legal changes have been made ( 22 ). However, more needs to be done. Screening and assessments must be conducted earlier in the process and become completely standardized and research-based ( 20 ). Research has shown that diversion programs and evidence-based treatment services, such as wraparound services and various types of therapy, are more efficacious when they are centered in the community rather than use of these treatments within the system ( 8 , 20 ). Moving forward, the juvenile justice system should play a larger role in connecting children and adolescents with child protection, education, and outside child welfare agencies.

Key Points/Clinical Pearls

Historically, youth offenders worldwide were punished as adults, and it took a much deeper understanding of development before reform occurred.

Despite our knowledge of development, politics and history in America have shaped the juvenile justice system to, in many ways, still treat children as adults and to function as a vast mental health care system.

Research that has been conducted in the juvenile justice system reveals that children involved with this system have higher rates of suicidality, trauma, and other mental disorders, and the long-term confinement these children undergo is even more detrimental.

Mental health screening, assessment, and treatment became mandatory in the system in the early 2000s, but a gap still exists between policies and intervention.

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• Relationships Matter: The Role Transition Specialists Play in Youth’s Reentry From the Juvenile Justice System 28 August 2020 | Career Development and Transition for Exceptional Individuals, Vol. 44, No. 1
• Nathaniel P. Morris , M.D.

Juvenile Court Research Paper

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Juvenile courts in the United States are legally responsible for young people who are arrested by the police or otherwise accused of breaking the criminal laws of their community. Some areas of the country do not have courts actually called juvenile courts. Law violations by young people may be handled by probate courts, juvenile divisions of a circuit court, or even comprehensive family courts. In every community, however, some form of court is charged with responding to cases in which a person under the age of adulthood (a juvenile) is suspected of breaking the law. Since these courts have jurisdiction over juveniles and they follow the same general principles of juvenile law, it is conventional to refer to them simply as juvenile courts.

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Many juvenile courts handle other types of cases. They often handle dependency cases (or matters involving abused and neglected children) and youth charged with noncriminal acts (or status offenses) such as curfew violations, running away from home, and truancy. Other juvenile courts (especially those known as family courts) may handle domestic violence and child custody matters. Typically, however, a juvenile court’s caseload is made up of law violations, status offenders, and dependency cases. Law violations usually account for about half of this workload.

Young people who violate the law before reaching the legal age of adulthood are referred to as juveniles in order to indicate that they are under the jurisdiction of the juvenile court rather than the criminal (or adult) court. Technically, juveniles cannot be arrested for committing crimes because the criminal code does not apply to young people under a certain age (usually age seventeen or eighteen). Rather than charging them with a crime, juveniles are usually arrested for committing acts of delinquency . A twenty-five year old who steals a car is arrested for the crime of auto theft. A fifteen year old who does the same thing is taken into custody for an act of delinquency that would have been considered auto theft if that youth had been an adult.

America’s system of juvenile law was founded on the premise that, due to their immaturity, young people accused of crimes should be handled differently than adults. Ideally, the juvenile court is more responsive than an adult court would be to the social and developmental characteristics of children and youth. The services and sanctions imposed by juvenile courts should be designed to do more than punish wrongdoing. They should address the causes of the youth’s misbehavior and eventually restore the youth to full and responsible membership in his or her family as well as the larger community. Some contemporary critics doubt whether this mission is achievable or even desirable in all cases.

Juvenile courts emerged during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the period in American history known as the Progressive era. Practitioners, policymakers, and historians often see the juvenile court’s history quite differently. Some characterize the founding of the first juvenile court as the culmination of many years of effort to guard the safety and well-being of youth in the justice system. In this view, the invention of the juvenile court was sparked by social reformers and activists who understood that children are different from adults and should be held less culpable for their unlawful behavior. Reformers worked to create a separate juvenile court, both to protect youth from harm and to provide earlier and more rehabilitative interventions for young offenders.

There is another, entirely different explanation for the emergence of the juvenile court. Historians and sociologists have noted that despite the rhetoric of social reformers, many early proponents of the juvenile court were interested in crime control. Before the development of juvenile courts, young offenders appeared in criminal court alongside adult defendants. Judges and jurors found many youth innocent or simply dismissed the charges against them. Acquittal was preferable to sending a young defendant to a nineteenth-century prison, especially when the defendant appeared socially and physically immature. In the late 1800s, police and prosecutors in many of the nation’s large cities were frustrated with the criminal court’s inability to sanction young offenders. They welcomed the idea of a separate juvenile court system. Such a court, they argued, would be more capable of responding to juveniles on their own terms and more likely to intervene, even in cases of relatively minor offenses and very young defendants.

The nation’s first juvenile court opened in Chicago in 1899. By 1909, twenty states had established juvenile courts and all but a few had done so by the end of the 1920s. Although each jurisdiction established its juvenile court system with its own procedures and structure, juvenile courts across the United States were generally designed to focus on early intervention and rehabilitation and to emphasize an individualized approach to youth crime. Juvenile court judges based their decisions on the unique circumstances of each offender rather than simply the severity of the offense. The goal of criminal (adult) courts was to determine guilt and dispense the right punishment for each crime. Juvenile courts were asked to investigate the causes of bad behavior and then devise a package of sanctions and services to put juveniles back on the right track.

To give juvenile courts the flexibility they would need to fulfill this mission, lawmakers allowed the juvenile court process to meet a significantly lower standard of evidence and due process. Juvenile law was codified entirely separately from criminal law. The facts of a case were not used to establish guilt but to document the occurrence of delinquency. Judges were not required to follow detailed procedures or to adhere to complex legal rules. There were fewer legal formalities in order to free the juvenile court to intervene quickly and comprehensively with each youth accused of violating the law. Even when a juvenile was merely suspected of criminal involvement, a juvenile court judge could take jurisdiction over the matter, place the youth on probation, or even hold the youth in secure custody.

The juvenile court’s expansive authority was derived from several concepts in English legal tradition. The most important of these was parens patriae , or roughly ‘‘the nation as parent.’’ Parens patriae suggested that the government had an obligation and a duty to look after the interests of children when natural parents were unable to do so. Long before the concept was discovered by American reformers, England’s Chancery Courts had been invoking parens patriae to take temporary custody of land and property that belonged to the orphaned children of wealthy families. In the mid-1800s, American courts had used parens patriae as a justification for placing recalcitrant children in ‘‘houses of refuge,’’ an early type of reformatory. America’s juvenile court founders argued that parens patriae also allowed the government to take charge of any child that was destitute, neglected, or ill behaved. This arrangement gave the juvenile court an unprecedented degree of power and discretion.

Retrenchment

Within a few decades of the juvenile court’s founding, some observers began to wonder whether lawmakers’ ambitions for the juvenile court had been excessive. Public criticism of the juvenile court intensified. Juvenile courts, especially those in urban areas, began to exhibit the worst features of criminal courts. Caseloads swelled, courtrooms fell into disrepair, and staff became disenchanted and disinterested. During the 1950s, legal activists began to challenge the sweeping discretion given to juvenile court judges. One influential law review article charged juvenile courts with violating important principles of equal protection and argued that ‘‘rehabilitation may be substituted for punishment, but a Star Chamber cannot be substituted for a trial’’ (Mathew Beemsterboer, quoted in Manfredi, p. 39).

As with other social reform efforts, it is difficult to say whether frustration with the juvenile court was borne of faulty conceptualization or poor execution. The direction taken by juvenile justice policy, however, was unmistakable. During the latter half of the twentieth century, lawmakers began to infuse the juvenile court with the values and orientation of the criminal court. Many states altered their laws to reduce the confidentiality of juvenile court proceedings and juvenile court records. Most states increased the legal formalities used in juvenile court and shifted the focus of the juvenile justice process away from individualized intervention. Instead, juvenile courts and juvenile justice agencies began to focus on public safety and offender accountability. In addition, nearly all states enacted laws to send more youth to criminal court where they could be tried and punished as adults. In the span of a single century, the American justice system had enthusiastically embraced and then largely rejected the concept of viewing the illegal behaviors of young people as something other than crime.

By the end of the juvenile court’s first century, it had been largely redesigned in the image of the criminal court. Yet, every jurisdiction in the United States continued to operate some form of juvenile court. The structure of juvenile courts across the country varied considerably. As the juvenile court concept spread across the United States in the early twentieth century, lawmakers invented a variety of structures for the new courts in order to incorporate juvenile court ideals into existing procedures and policies. Even today, the purposes and procedures of juvenile courts vary substantially from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.

Many communities in the United States do not even have actual juvenile courts. Frequently, the court responsible for handling young people accused of law violations is a division of some other court, such as a superior court or a circuit court (Rottman). In Connecticut, for example, the juvenile court is part of the Superior Court, which is a court of general jurisdiction . There are thirteen districts for handling juvenile matters in Connecticut although criminal and civil matters are organized into twenty-two separate geographic areas. In Georgia, the juvenile court is a separate court of limited jurisdiction and every one of Georgia’s 159 counties has a juvenile court. Colorado handles delinquency cases in twentytwo district courts, which are courts of general jurisdiction. However, the city of Denver has its own separate juvenile court that is also a court of general jurisdiction. In contrast, Utah’s juvenile courts are operated as a single, statewide structure of limited jurisdiction courts, and twenty different branches are divided among eight judicial districts.

In addition to differences in structure and organization, juvenile courts across the United States also vary considerably in their responsibilities and activities. Most states give their juvenile courts legal jurisdiction over cases involving delinquency, abuse and neglect, and status offense proceedings. Some juvenile courts also have jurisdiction over adoptions, terminations of parental rights, interstate compact matters, emancipation, and consent (i.e., to marry, enlist in the armed services, be employed, and so on). Occasionally, juvenile courts may even have jurisdiction over traffic violations and child support matters.

The scope of the juvenile court’s responsibility for delinquency cases is generally defined by state law. In most jurisdictions, the juvenile court handles any act committed by a juvenile for which an adult could be prosecuted in criminal court. This would include everything from relatively minor offenses (e.g., loitering, disturbing the peace, and vandalism), to more serious offenses including weapons violations, drug offenses, arson, property offenses (e.g., shoplifting, theft, and burglary), and person offenses (e.g., assault, robbery, and homicide).

Most juvenile courts have responsibility for law violations committed by youth through the age of seventeen, but the upper age of the juvenile court’s jurisdiction varies from state to state. In 1999, the upper age of juvenile court jurisdiction was fifteen in Connecticut, New York, and North Carolina, and age sixteen in ten states (Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Texas, and Wisconsin). In the remaining thirty-seven states and the District of Columbia, the upper age of juvenile court jurisdiction was seventeen. In every state, there are exceptions when a youth below the state’s upper age of jurisdiction can be placed under the original jurisdiction of the adult criminal court. For example, in most states if a youth of a certain age is charged with an offense from a defined list of ‘‘excluded offenses,’’ the case must originate in criminal court.

The formal goals and purposes of the juvenile court can be quite different from state to state. During the 1980s and 1990s, a number of states modified the formal missions of their juvenile court systems to incorporate a greater emphasis on punishment or accountability. In nine states, for example, lawmakers give the juvenile court an explicit mandate to hold young offenders accountable for their law violations by exacting proportionate retribution or punishment (Arkansas, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, and Rhode Island). Other states emphasize prevention and rehabilitation as the formal goals of their juvenile courts (for example, Kentucky, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina, Vermont, and West Virginia). In most states, the formal mission of the juvenile court is to achieve a combination of youth rehabilitation and public safety.

The people who work in juvenile courts often include judges, attorneys (prosecution and defense), administrators, clerks, bailiffs, and a wide range of other staff such as secretaries, security guards, and maintenance workers. For the most part, however, when one thinks of juvenile court personnel, the primary categories are judges, attorneys, caseworkers (probation officers), and court administrative staff (executive and clerical).

Some juvenile courts focus primarily on fact finding. Juveniles brought before such courts are usually referred to other agencies following disposition. These courts are likely to have few employees—a judge, perhaps a court reporter, and a clerk. Other juvenile courts provide a full array of pretrial and postdisposition services and require large professional staffs. Juvenile courts in more than half of the states administer their own probation departments and many are responsible for their own juvenile detention centers as well. These full-service courts essentially function as social welfare agencies, correctional facilities, and collection agencies. Jurisdictions also vary in the extent of their pre-court screening of cases, partly because they vary in the degree to which law enforcement agencies divert youths from the juvenile justice system. If the local police send virtually all cases forward for court handling, the juvenile court’s intake process must contend with a diverse population of youth and the court is required to employ more staff.

Many juvenile courts employ referees, masters, or commissioners to conduct juvenile court hearings. In some jurisdictions, these nonjudicial hearing officers handle a large portion of the juvenile court’s workload. Their authority is often limited to entering findings and recommendations that require confirmation by a judge to become final. Because nonjudicial hearing officers usually earn less salary than judges, some courts rely heavily on referees and masters. Nonjudicial hearing officers may outnumber judges in a particular court by as much as seven to one. Some observers have expressed concern that the widespread use of nonjudicial hearing officers demonstrates a troublesome attitude among state legislatures and perhaps the public—that the juvenile court is an inferior forum and thus judges are not required (Rubin, 1981).

Another growing concern about personnel in the juvenile court is that too many juveniles still receive inadequate legal representation. Before the 1960s, there were few defense attorneys in juvenile courts. In many jurisdictions, however, the situation has not improved substantially. In the late 1990s, a joint study by the American Bar Association, the Youth Law Center of San Francisco, and the Juvenile Law Center of Philadelphia suggested improvements were still needed, including: (1) an increase in the number of defense attorneys and related support personnel; (2) greater equity in funding for juvenile defenders and prosecutors and for juvenile defenders in comparison with adult defenders; (3) more continuing legal training for juvenile defense attorneys; (4) abolition of the practice of using juvenile court as a training ground for new attorneys; (5) a policy to guarantee juveniles effective counsel at all stages of the juvenile court process; and (6) the creation of a training academy for juvenile defense attorneys equivalent to the federally funded training available to juvenile court judges and prosecutors.

The official purpose of the juvenile court is to decide whether a youth should be adjudicated (or judged) as a delinquent. Part of this decision is based upon evidence of the youth’s unlawful behavior, but the decision also involves an assessment of each youth’s individual situation. When a youth is adjudicated delinquent, the juvenile court does not simply impose a sentence commensurate with the severity of the offense. The court determines the best overall response to the entirety of the situation. This response—or disposition —may include elements of punishment and control, but it may also incorporate individual and family services, educational and vocational rehabilitation, and often restitution to the victim or community.

The actual process for handling delinquency cases can vary considerably from community to community. In some jurisdictions, all juvenile arrests are sent directly to the juvenile court where they are reviewed (or screened) by an intake unit within the juvenile court. The court’s intake unit may then determine that the matter should be handled informally (or diverted from the official court process). If not diverted, the case matter may be formally charged (or petitioned ) and proceed to an adjudication hearing. In other communities, the juvenile court may not be involved in delinquency cases until another agency (e.g., the prosecutor’s office or a social service agency) has first screened the case. In other words, the intake function is performed outside the juvenile court. In Baltimore, Maryland, for example, juveniles arrested by the police are first screened by the Maryland Department of Juvenile Justice. The department decides whether to forward the case for prosecution in juvenile court or to refer the youth to some form of noncourt diversion program. In contrast, juveniles arrested in Phoenix, Arizona, go directly to the juvenile court and the juvenile court’s intake unit decides whether the case should proceed to adjudication or receive a diversion alternative instead.

Certain processing steps are common to most juvenile justice systems, regardless of terminology, the configuration of the court, or the allocation of service delivery responsibilities. Most juvenile justice systems have some form of intake or initial review of each case. Next there is a pretrial procedure to identify the appropriate charges and the prosecutor (or another agency) decides whether to file a formal petition in the case. Following the charging and petition decisions, the adjudication process begins. If the facts of the case are established, the youth may be formally adjudicated as a delinquent. Finally, a disposition process is used to impose sanctions and services.

Not all cases that merit formal handling are scheduled for adjudication hearings in juvenile court. Instead of filing a formal petition in juvenile court, the intake department (or prosecutor) may decide that a case should be removed from juvenile court and waived to criminal (adult) court. Cases are usually waived to criminal court because they involve serious or violent offenses, or because the youth has a lengthy record of prior offenses. In such cases, a petition is usually filed in juvenile court asking the juvenile court judge to waive jurisdiction over the case. The juvenile court judge then decides whether the case merits criminal prosecution. If a waiver request is denied, the matter is often immediately scheduled for an adjudication hearing in juvenile court.

At an adjudication hearing, the court hears the evidence and testimony pertaining to the case and the judge decides whether the youth should be adjudicated. If the proceeding results in a failure to adjudicate (analogous to an acquittal ), the petition might be dismissed and the case could be considered closed at that point. Even if not adjudicated, a case may be continued in contemplation of dismissal. For instance, the court could recommend that a youth do something prior to dismissal of all charges, such as paying restitution or voluntarily attending drug counseling. Such a case would not be considered complete until the youth followed through as instructed and the charges were dismissed.

Cases that result in adjudication (analogous to conviction ) are sent forward for a disposition hearing (analogous to sentencing ). At the disposition hearing, the court determines the most appropriate package of services and sanctions for each youth. Options often include commitment to an institution, placement in a group home or other residential facility, probation (either regular or intensive), referral to an outside agency (for drug treatment, mental health services, etc.), community service, and fines or restitution payments. Ideally, the disposition is designed to protect the public safety as well as address each youth’s individual needs and characteristics.

In 1997 juvenile courts throughout the United States handled an estimated 1,755,100 delinquency cases. This was equivalent to nearly 5,000 cases per day. The national caseload in 1997 was more than double the number of cases handled by juvenile courts in 1970.

A property offense was the most serious charge involved in 48 percent of delinquency cases nationwide in 1997. The most serious charge was a person offense in 22 percent of the cases, a drug offense in 10 percent, and a public order offense in 19 percent (i.e., obstruction of justice, disorderly conduct, weapons offenses). Larceny-theft, simple assault, burglary, vandalism, and obstruction of justice were the most common delinquency offenses seen by juvenile courts in 1997. Together, these offenses accounted for 59 percent of all delinquency cases processed by juvenile courts during 1997.

More than half (57 percent) of the delinquency cases handled by U.S. courts with juvenile jurisdiction in 1997 were processed formally (i.e., a petition was filed charging the youth with delinquency). Of all the cases that were formally petitioned and scheduled for an adjudication or waiver hearing in juvenile court in 1997, 58 percent were adjudicated delinquent while less than 1 percent were transferred to adult court. Transfers to adult court were more common in cases involving formally handled person offenses (1.5 percent) and drug offenses (1.1 percent). Of the delinquency cases adjudicated in juvenile court in 1997, 28 percent resulted in out-of-home placement and 55 percent in probation.

To examine changes in juvenile court caseloads while controlling for the size of the population, researchers often examine the per capita rate of delinquency cases (number of cases per 1,000 juveniles in the population). Juvenile population is defined as the number of youth age ten or older who were at or under the upper age of original jurisdiction of the juvenile court according to the laws of their state. Between 1987 and 1996, for example, the national delinquency case rate increased 34 percent, from 46 to 62 cases for every 1,000 youth at risk of referral to juvenile court. The steepest increases between 1987 and 1996 were seen among fifteen year olds (up 45 percent) and sixteen year olds (up 43 percent). The case rate for juveniles charged with drug offenses and person offenses also grew substantially, 120 percent and 80 percent, respectively.

Juvenile Rights

Prior to the 1960s, juveniles accused of delinquent offenses had virtually no due process rights in American juvenile courts. Since the official purpose of the juvenile court process was to help rather than to punish, it was thought to be unnecessary to protect juveniles in the same ways that adult defendants were protected in criminal court. Juveniles arrested for delinquency had no right to an attorney unless they happened to live in a jurisdiction where this was granted to them by state or local law. They had no federal right to inspect or challenge evidence against them, or even be informed of the charges against them. The sweeping discretion of juvenile court judges had never been reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court and local judges throughout the country were free to run their juvenile courts as they saw fit.

The situation changed suddenly and dramatically in 1967 when the U.S. Supreme Court announced its decision in a case known as In re Gault . An Arizona juvenile court judge had institutionalized fifteen-year-old Gerald Gault for making a mildly obscene telephone call to a neighbor. Based on the neighbor’s complaint, Gerald was picked up by the local sheriff and placed in juvenile detention. The juvenile court did not bother to notify Gerald’s family that he was in custody. It never heard testimony from the victim in the case, and it never established whether Gerald had actually made the call. Gerald was committed to a state institution for delinquent boys for the ‘‘period of his minority,’’ or three years. If he had been an adult, his sentence would likely have been a small fine.

The Supreme Court’s reaction to Gault’s appeal was harsh and far-reaching. In any delinquency proceeding in which confinement was a possible outcome, the Court ruled, youth should have the right to formal notice of charges against them and the right to cross-examine prosecution witnesses, the right to assistance of counsel, and the protection against self-incrimination. The Supreme Court based its ruling on the fact that Gault had clearly been punished by the juvenile court, not treated . The opinion also explicitly rejected the doctrine of parens patriae as the founding principle of juvenile justice. The Supreme Court described the meaning of parens patriae as ‘‘murky’’ and characterized its ‘‘historic credentials’’ as of ‘‘dubious relevance.’’

Gault was one of a series of juvenile justice cases decided by the Supreme Court in the 1960s and 1970s. Together, the cases imposed significant procedural restrictions on U.S. juvenile courts. By the 1980s, juvenile courts had been ‘‘constitutionally domesticated.’’ Juveniles charged with law violations had far more due process protections, although they were still denied the federal rights of bail, jury trial, and speedy trial. Juvenile courts were required to follow a higher standard of evidence (‘‘reasonable doubt’’ rather than ‘‘preponderance’’) and juvenile court adjudication was considered equivalent to a criminal conviction in evaluating double jeopardy claims.

Some critics contend that the consequences of these reforms may not have been fully appreciated by youth advocates or even by the Supreme Court itself. As Justice Potter Stewart warned in his dissent to Gault , the introduction of greater due process for juveniles may have had the unintended consequence of encouraging states to make their juvenile courts more like criminal courts:

The inflexible restrictions that the Constitution so wisely made applicable to adversary criminal trials have no inevitable place in the proceedings of those public social agencies known as juvenile or family courts. And to impose the Court’s long catalog of requirements upon juvenile proceedings in every area of the country is to invite a long step backwards into the nineteenth century. In that era there were no juvenile proceedings, and a child was tried in a conventional criminal court with all the trappings of a conventional criminal trial. So it was that a 12-year-old boy named James Guild was tried in New Jersey for killing Catharine Beakes. A jury found him guilty of murder, and he was sentenced to death by hanging. The sentence was executed. It was all very constitutional ( In re Gault , 387 U.S. 1, 1967, pp. 79–80).

Continuing Controversies

Justice Stewart’s comments seemed quite prescient as the twentieth century ended. For thirty years following the Gault decision, state legislatures across the U.S. continued the due process reforms endorsed by the Supreme Court. Using various mechanisms, lawmakers greatly limited the discretion of juvenile court judges and made the juvenile court process more evidence-driven and formalized. They also sent far more juveniles directly to criminal court, effectively abolishing the juvenile court’s jurisdiction over many categories of young offenders.

The purposes and procedures of juvenile justice were becoming increasingly similar to those of criminal justice. Juvenile justice interventions that once targeted the depth of an offender’s troubles were increasingly focused on the gravity of the offender’s behavior. If the adequacy of intervention was once evaluated by its intensity, it was now to be judged by its duration as well.

As lawmakers reinvented the goals and procedures of juvenile courts in order to make them more like those of criminal courts, they became increasingly interested in new provisions for transferring juveniles to adult court. At first, transfer policies focused on a few exceptional cases, such as the most violent offenders. Soon, however, transfers were expanded to include drug offenders, juveniles accused of weapon charges, and even chronic property offenders. States first attempted merely to increase the number of youth waived to criminal court by judges. Later, the procedural difficulties involved in judicial waiver became burdensome and states began to experiment with other methods of increasing the level of punishment available for juvenile offenders.

New Policy Directions

Lawmakers throughout the country began to experiment with an array of new policy options for young offenders. For example, some states gave judges the power to ‘‘blend’’ criminal court sentences with juvenile court dispositions. Some jurisdictions passed blended sentencing laws that allowed judges to sentence juveniles directly to either juvenile or adult corrections. Other jurisdictions allowed judges to impose sentences that sequentially confined offenders to juvenile and adult correctional facilities. Young offenders would be confined in juvenile facilities until they reached a certain age and then they would be transferred to adult facilities to serve the remainder of their sentences. By the end of the 1990s, at least twenty states had enacted some form of blended sentencing (Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, Missouri, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia) (Torbet and Szymanski, 1998:6).

Sentencing guidelines and mandatory minimum policies for juveniles also began to proliferate during the 1990s. As of 1997, 17 states and the District of Columbia had enacted some type of mandatory minimum sentencing for at least some juvenile offenders (Torbet and Szymanski, pp. 7–8). Typically, sentencing guidelines apply only in cases involving violent or serious juvenile offenders as defined by statute. For example, Massachusetts adopted a law that required juveniles at least fourteen years of age who were found responsible for first-degree murder to serve a sentence of at least fifteen years in a correctional facility and juveniles found responsible for second-degree murder were required to serve at least ten years.

Some jurisdictions applied sentencing guidelines to young offenders by first requiring that they be tried in criminal court, but others (e.g., Arizona, Utah, and Wyoming) applied formal sentencing guidelines to the juvenile court. Juvenile dispositions were required to be consistent with a predefined sentencing menu based upon the most recent offense and prior record. The use of structured sentencing contradicted the basic premise of juvenile justice by making dispositions proportional to the severity of an offense rather than to the characteristics and life problems of an offender. Their existence highlights the extent to which the juvenile court has been replaced by a modified criminal court for youthful offenders.

Another significant departure from the traditional juvenile court concept is the growing popularity of allowing juvenile court records to follow young adults into criminal court. By allowing criminal court judges to consider a defendant’s prior juvenile court record at the time of sentencing, states altered the terms of the agreement that created the juvenile court system in the first place. Originally, juveniles essentially agreed to receive less due process in juvenile court in exchange for a less formal, nonstigmatizing, and nonpermanent disposition. By the 1990s, however, the emergence of policies that permitted juvenile court records to enhance the severity of criminal court sentences revoked this arrangement. Defendants could now be imprisoned for many years as a direct result of a previous adjudication in juvenile court. As of 1997, all fifty states and the District of Columbia had statutes, court rules, or case law that allowed this practice (Sanborn, p. 209).

A Remade Juvenile Court

Every jurisdiction in the United States continues to operate a separate juvenile court system, but many youth are ineligible for juvenile court and those that remain experience a juvenile court process that is far more criminalized . Juvenile court procedures are more complex and evidence-driven. Cases are more likely to be formally charged by prosecutors instead of being handled informally by probation workers. Juvenile court dispositions are increasingly governed by offense severity rather than by youth troubles. Defense attorneys are under pressure to defend juvenile clients more vigorously since adjudication may lead to more severe sanctions. Probation officers, prosecutors, and judges openly embrace the goals of retribution and incapacitation. In short, the similarities of the juvenile and adult justice systems are becoming greater than the differences between them. The primary challenge for lawmakers during the twenty-first century may be to decide whether to continue maintaining the separate juvenile court at all.

Bibliography:

• BERNARD, THOMAS The Cycle of Juvenile Justice. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992. BUTTS, JEFFREY, and HARRELL, ADELE. Delinquents or Criminals: Policy Options for Young Offenders. Washington, D.C.: Urban Institute, 1998.
• FELD, BARRY ‘‘Abolish the Juvenile Court: Youthfulness, Criminal Responsibility, and Sentencing Policy.’’ Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology 88, no. 1 (1997): 68–136.
• FOX, SANFORD ‘‘Juvenile Justice Reform: An Historical Perspective.’’ Stanford Law Review 22 ( June 1970): 1187–1239.
• MANFREDI, CHRISTOPHER The Supreme Court and Juvenile Justice. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1998.
• PLATT, ANTHONY The Child Savers: The Invention of Delinquency. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977.
• ROTHMAN, DAVID Conscience and Convenience: The Asylum and its Alternatives in Progressive America. Glenview, Ill.: Scott, Foresman and Company, 1980.
• ROTTMAN, DAVID, et al. State Court Organization 1998. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Assistance, 2000.
• RUBIN, H. TED. ‘‘Between Recommendations and Orders: The Limbo Status of Juvenile Court Referees.’’ Crime and Delinquency 27, no. 3 (1981): 317–335.
• RUBIN, H. TED. ‘‘Role of Defense Attorneys in Juvenile Justice Proceedings.’’ Juvenile Justice Update 2, no. 2 (1996): 1–2, 10, 11.
• SANBORN, JOSEPH, JR. ‘‘Second-Class Justice, First-Class Punishment: The Use of Juvenile Records in Sentencing Adults.’’ Judicature 81, no. 5 (1998): 206–213.
• SICKMUND, MELISSA. ‘‘Offenders in Juvenile Court, 1997.’’ Juvenile Justice Bulletin. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, 2000.
• SNYDER, HOWARD, and SICKMUND, MELISSA. Juvenile Offenders and Victims: 1999 National Report. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, 1999.
• TORBET, PATRICIA, and SZYMANSKI, LINDA. ‘‘State Legislative Responses to Violent Juvenile Crime: 1996–97 Update.’’ Juvenile Justice Bulletin. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, 1998.
• WATKINS, JOHN, JR. The Juvenile Justice Century. Durham, N.C.: Carolina Academic Press, 1998.

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Filing procedures.

eFiling information for attorneys

How to File

"Filing" means to give documents to the court. Attorneys are required to  eFile  all documents with the court. If you are representing yourself, how you file will depend:

• And you are starting a case, you can either deliver your papers to the court, mail them, or  email them .
• And you are filing in an existing case, you can either deliver your papers to the court, mail them, or  email them . For eviction and debt collection cases you can also file papers using  MyCase .
• If your case is in juvenile court you can either deliver your papers to the court, mail them, or  email them .  

The US Postal Service has changed delivery times. Your mail could be delayed by several days. If you are facing a deadline to file something you might want to consider filing it by email or using another delivery method.

A document is not filed until the court receives it. If the document goes missing in the mail, it has not been filed. A party filing by mail does not have to use registered or certified mail, but it may be a good idea because the filing party is responsible for non-delivery.

Non-Public Information

The person filing a document with the court is responsible for making sure it does not include any non-public information, and must declare that they have done so. See the  Non-public Records web page  for information about what is and isn't public information, and to find forms for providing non-public information to the court.

Where to File

A complaint or petition starting a case must be filed with the court that has the authority to handle it. This is called "jurisdiction."

• Most civil cases, including  divorce  and  eviction , are filed in district court.
• Small claims  cases are filed in justice court (except in Cache County).
• A request for a  child protective order  or a  petition to terminate parental rights  are filed in juvenile court.

The complaint or petition also must be filed in the correct county. This is called "venue." There may be more than one correct county to choose from. The county in which the defendant lives and the county in which the case arose are almost always the correct county. There may be other ways to determine proper venue in particular types of cases. See the  Utah Code  for laws about venue for many kinds of cases.

After the initial petition or complaint has been filed with the court, all other documents are filed in the clerk's office of the court handling the case.

When to File

Court cases and documents filed in court cases have deadlines. Documents must be filed before the deadline, and different documents have different deadlines. For example:

• A complaint or petition must be filed within the deadline created by the applicable  Statute of Limitations .
• An  Answer  to a complaint or petition must be filed within the time specified in the  Summons .
• The  Motions  process has specific deadlines outlined in  Utah Rule of Civil Procedure 7  and  URCP 101 .
• The deadlines for other documents are governed by  court rules , including  Utah Rules of Civil Procedure  and  Utah Rules of Small Claims Procedure .

Many deadlines are calculated from the day the party was served.  Utah Rule of Civil Procedure 6  defines how to calculate deadline dates:

• June 17 is day 0
• June 18 is day 1
• June 19 is day 2, etc.
• Do count the last day, unless it is a Saturday, Sunday or legal holiday. For example, if a party has 21 days in which to file a document and day 21 is a Saturday, Sunday or legal holiday, their last day to file the document would be the end of the next business day.
• If the time period is stated in days, count intermediate Saturdays, Sundays, and legal holidays.
• If the time period is stated in hours, count intermediate Saturdays, Sundays, and legal holidays. If the period would end on a Saturday, Sunday or legal holiday, the period continues to run until the same time on the next business day.
• Time stated as "calendar days" includes Saturday, Sunday and holidays in the calculation. Time stated as "business days" does not.
• If documents are served by mail, seven days are added to the deadline. For example, if a party mails to the other party a document that requires a response within 14 days, the responding party has seven additional days to respond. The court must receive the response by day 21.

There are other requirements, so read  Rule of Civil Procedure 6  carefully.

If documents are filed in person, the filing party must be in the clerk's office before closing. Some courts do not accept filings shortly before closing.  Contact court staff  to ask about local procedures.

There is a filing fee for nearly all complaints and petitions and for some other documents. Filing fees are established by  Utah Code Section 78A-2-301 . The  Filing / Record Fees web page  lists all filing fees, as do the:

If a party cannot afford the filing fees, they can ask the judge to consider waiving them. See the  Fee Waiver web page  for more information and forms.

If a party is not asking that the fee be waived, they must pay the fee when the documents are filed with the court. If documents are filed by mail, the party must include a check for the filing fee.

Serving Papers on the Other Party

All documents filed with the court must be "served" on all parties in the case. "Service" means delivering the forms or documents to the other parties. See the  Serving Papers web page  for information about the rules for serving documents to start a case, and for serving documents once a case is underway.

Courtesy Copies

Some courts require parties to file "courtesy copies." These are extra copies for the judge or commissioner in addition to the set filed with the court.  Contact court staff  to ask about local procedures.

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Queensland teen who admitted to paying couriers to deliver wholesale amounts of marijuana, MDMA and cocaine avoids conviction

A teenage boy has avoided a conviction and will not spend any time in custody after admitting to running a "relatively sophisticated" trafficking business where he hired couriers to deliver wholesale amounts of drugs in Queensland.

The teen, who was 15 years old at the time, pleaded guilty in the Supreme Court in Brisbane on Monday to a string of charges, including trafficking dangerous drugs in 2022 and 2023.

During a sentencing hearing, the court heard the boy had begun smoking cannabis at the age of eight and had initially started dealing to fund his addiction.

The court heard over a six-month period he had developed a large customer base and employed couriers to deliver wholesale amounts of that drug, as well as cocaine and MDMA.

When he was arrested, he was also found in possession of more than 200 grams of cannabis.

A surprising amount of complexity

Prosecutor Samuel Sherrie told the court this was "extremely serious offending" for someone of his age, and had he been an adult at the time he would be facing time in prison.

"[The defendant's] business was relatively sophisticated," he said.

"There is a degree of complexity here with the trafficking which is surprising for somebody so young."

His lawyer Tristan Carlos told the court his client had a dysfunctional upbringing after being raised by a drug using mother, and was exposed to illicit substances and domestic violence from an early age.

"He then started stealing cannabis from her and smoking it himself," he said.

The court heard the boy had also been subject to a "terrifying experience" in which his drug supplier had threatened to put him in the "boot of a car" over a debt, and his parents had to "pay their way out of it".

Justice Glenn Martin told the boy this was a likely outcome of engaging in illegal activity.

"If someone wants to engage in drug trafficking then the consequences are not just legal," he said.

The teen, who had no criminal history and has not served any time in pre-sentence custody, was handed a three-year probation order.

No conviction was recorded and the boy was free to leave court.

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Latah County, Idaho

There is a District Court in each of the 44 counties of the state. These courts are divided into seven judicial districts with four to ten counties in each district. Latah County is one of five counties which comprise the Second Judicial District. District Court is divided into two sections, the District Court and the Magistrate Division. District Judges are elected by qualified electors in district-wide elections on a non-partisan ballot every four years. Magistrates are appointed by a District Magistrate Commission. After initial appointment to a two-year term, a Magistrate may be re-elected on a retention ballot to a four-year term. Latah County has two resident Judges, one District and one Magistrate. The District Judge has original jurisdiction in all cases and proceedings; in the issuance of writs of mandamus, certiorari, prohibition, habeas corpus and all writs necessary to the exercise of his/her powers; appellate jurisdiction extends to all cases assigned to the Magistrate's division of the District Court and to all other matters and cases where an appeal is allowed by law. The Magistrate Judge is responsible for infractions/trials, misdemeanors/trials, small claims court, felony probable-cause hearings/felony preliminary hearings, divorce proceedings, domestic violence hearings and is granted jurisdiction in civil proceedings where the amount in controversy does not exceed $10,000. Both District Judge and Magistrate Judge conduct jury trials; each issues subpoenas, warrants of arrest and each hears probation violation matters.

Visit the Local Court Assistance Office or State Court Assistance Office web page for public self-help access to legal information.

Information Regarding State vs Bryan Kohberger

To access other court documents on these cases, please visit the Cases of Interest webpage on the Idaho Supreme Court's website

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Any person charged with an infraction by a citation may enter an admission by paying the total amount due either in person at the Clerk's Office or by mail to:

Latah County District Court PO Box 8068 Moscow, ID 83843

Make checks payable to: District Court

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Ticket payments can be made online in the Online Payment Portal

If the person charged wishes to deny the offense, they may do so either by checking the “not guilty” box on the reverse side of the citation and mailing it to the above address so it arrives no later than the appearance date, telephoning the Clerk's Office at (208) 883-2255 and entering their denial over the phone, or by stopping by the Clerk's Office at 522 South Adams and denying the charge. The clerk will then set a trial date and provide written notice to the defendant and the prosecutor.

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All parking tickets issued by the City of Moscow are paid at the Moscow Police Department.

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Escaped juvenile detainees arrested by CMPD after stealing car, crashing into patrol vehicle

Police advised there were no injuries in the crash.

HARRISBURG, N.C. (WBTV) — Two juveniles being taken to the Cabarrus Juvenile Detention Center escaped a transport van on Thursday and were eventually arrested by Charlotte-Mecklneburg Police .

Officials say the detainees, Jeremiah W. and Joshua O., escaped around 1:05 p.m. along Highway 49 North near Roberta Road in Harrisburg.

Deputies say one of the two was able to force the transport vehicle door open before they forcibly removed a female from her vehicle, stole it, and drove away.

At around 6:50 p.m., CMPD said they apprehended both juveniles after they collided with one of their patrol vehicles on Brookshire Boulevard near Beatties Ford Road.

“Division officials have a high degree of concern for the safety of both the juvenile and the public due to the assaultive behavior allegedly exhibited by the juvenile during the escape and/or a prior history of unpredictable behavior, including vehicle theft and assault,” N.C. Department of Public Safety officials wrote when the two first escaped.

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