Juvenile Confinement - Who Is A Juvenile?

In most states offenders age eighteen or younger are considered juveniles and fall under the jurisdiction of juvenile courts rather than adult criminal courts. However, all states will prosecute juveniles as adults under some circumstances. According to the National Center for Juvenile Justice (http://ncjj.servehttp.com/NCJJWebsite/main.htm) in 2005:

• "Forty-six states have judicial waiver provisions, in which juvenile court judges clear the way for criminal court prosecutions by waiving jurisdiction over individual juveniles. Under a waiver law, a case against an offender of juvenile age must at least originate in juvenile court; it cannot be channeled elsewhere without a juvenile court judge's formal approval. While all states prescribe standards that must be consulted in waiver decision-making, most leave the decision largely to the judge's discretion (forty-five states). However, some set up presumptions in favor of waiver in certain classes of cases (fifteen states), and some even specify circumstances under which waiver is mandatory (fifteen states)."
• "Fifteen states have direct file laws, which leave it up to prosecutors to decide, at least in specified classes of cases, whether to initiate cases in juvenile or criminal courts."
• "Twenty-nine states have statutory exclusion provisions that grant criminal courts original jurisdiction over certain classes of cases involving juveniles. Legislatures in these states have essentially predetermined the question of the appropriate forum for prosecution—taking the decision out of both prosecutors' and judges' hands."

As of March 2005, the OJJDP Statistical Briefing Book, maintained on the Internet by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), indicated that most states retain juvenile court jurisdiction over offenders seventeen years of age and younger. Those older are considered to be adults. In ten states, those sixteen and younger are juveniles. In Connecticut, New York, and North Carolina, juveniles are fifteen and younger. (See Table 7.1.)

According to the National Center for Juvenile Justice, since 1992 many states have tightened their laws concerning the criminal prosecution of juveniles. Between 1998 and 2002, eighteen states expanded the number of offenses that could transfer a juvenile's case into criminal court. In most cases, the change was an addition to the transfer-eligible list of offenses. Because of the shootings at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, in 1999, for example, three states (Illinois, Nevada, and New York) changed their transfer laws to include violent crimes committed on school property. Illinois, Maryland, and North Carolina changed their laws so that juveniles who have previously been tried as adults are ineligible to ever be tried in juvenile court.