According to our analysis of NCJJ data, the rate at which juvenile court judges sent formal delinquency cases to criminal court has remained less than 2 percent from 1988 to 1992. Our analysis of statutory exclusion laws indicated that the laws generally established specific criteria that focused on juveniles (1) charged with serious violent offenses and/or (2) with previous court records. In addition, our analysis showed that legislation passed in the last 16 years included two primary types of changes: (1) in 24 states and the District of Columbia legislative changes tended to increase the population of juveniles who may be sent to criminal court and (2) in 17 other states, recent legislation changed the method in which certain juveniles may be sent to criminal court (e.g., from the judicial waiver to the prosecutor direct filing). In 1992, about 47 percent of juveniles whose cases were waived were white, 50 percent were black, and 3 percent were of other races. For example, in Virginia, any juvenile previously convicted as an adult is excluded from juvenile court jurisdiction regardless of the offense. Most Juveniles Sentenced in Criminal Court for Serious Offenses Were Incarcerated

In four of seven states we analyzed, over half of the juveniles sentenced in criminal court for serious violent, serious property, or drug offenses were incarcerated in each state. In fact, in five of the states, some juveniles convicted of serious violent offenses received probation sentences. In 1992, in about 43 percent of approximately 744,000 formal delinquency cases, juveniles were placed on probation. Of the remaining 53 percent of the cases, about 30 percent of the juveniles were placed on probation, 23 percent received some other disposition, and 0.4 percent were placed in a residential treatment program. Specifically, we agreed with your Committees to provide the frequency to which juveniles have been sent to criminal court by judicial waiver, prosecutor direct filing, and statutory exclusion; analyze juvenile conviction rates and sentences of juveniles prosecuted in criminal court using the most current data; analyze the dispositions of juveniles in juvenile court; and analyze the conditions of confinement in adult correctional facilities for juveniles convicted in criminal court.
Why GAO Did This Study

Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO reviewed the frequency with which juveniles have been sent to criminal court, focusing on: (1) juvenile conviction rates and sentences in criminal court; (2) dispositions of juvenile cases in juvenile court; and (3) conditions of confinement for juveniles incarcerated in adult correctional facilities.

What GAO Found

GAO found that: (1) less than 2 percent of the juvenile delinquency cases filed in juvenile court from 1988 through 1992 were transferred to criminal court; (2) in states that permitted prosecutor direct filing, between 1 and 13 percent of the juvenile cases were referred directly to criminal court; (3) state laws that excluded certain juveniles from juvenile court jurisdiction mainly focused on violent offenses or juveniles with previous court records; (4) new state laws have generally increased the frequency in which juveniles are sent to criminal court by either decreasing the age or increasing the types of offenses for which juveniles may be sent to criminal court; (5) juveniles in six of the seven states studied tended to be convicted when prosecuted in criminal court, most often for property offenses; (6) between 3 to 50 percent of the juveniles convicted of serious violent offenses received probation; (7) in four of the seven states, juvenile incarceration rates for violent, property, and drug offenses were between 62 and 100 percent; (8) in the 744,000 formal delinquency cases filed in 1992, 43 percent of the juveniles received probation, 27 percent of the cases were dismissed, 17 percent of the juveniles were placed in residential treatment, 12 percent received other disposition, and 1 percent were transferred to criminal court; and (9) in three of the states studied, the juveniles sentenced to adult prisons were housed in separate prisons, but health, recreation, and educational services were equivalent in all seven states' facilities.