A STUDY OF PROSECUTORIAL CERTIFICATION PRACTICE IN VIRGINIA

Sanjeev Sridharan · LYNETTE GREENFIELD · BARON BLAKLEY

21 citations0/0 files storedCriminology & Public Policy

No readable copy stored yet — this record is metadata only.

No open-access location is known for this record yet.

Literature note Cite in a project Citation map

Legal and Social Justice Studies Criminal Law and Policy Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis

Abstract

Research Summary: In response to the growing trend of violent juvenile crime, the Virginia legislature enacted the Juvenile Justice Reform Package in 1996. This legislation created two new classes of transfers: automatic and prosecutorial certifications. This article examines the prosecutor's decision to certify a juvenile offender to adult court in Virginia for intake cases in 1997 and 1998. Although the law gives the prosecutor the authority to certify all cases that meet certain criteria, only a portion of those are actually certified, which indicates that other factors must be impacting the decision. A number of factors relating to present and prior offenses, offender's social history characteristics, and the location of the courts were examined. Location of the court was important in influencing prosecutorial certification in Virginia. Policy Implications: The policy implications of the following three key findings are discussed: (1) Small percentage of waiver‐eligible offenders at intake are actually transferred; (2) Considerable variation in certification practice across localities; (3) Serious juvenile offenders are more likely to be waived. The analysis of juvenile records was supplemented with qualitative interviews with key decision makers in the transfer process, including a sample of judges, prosecutors, court service unit directors, and probation officers. These key decision makers provided feedback to improve the certification processes. Key feedback included the need for information systems to follow the flow of transfer cases through the system and the need for a three‐tiered placement system within the adult system whereby offenders are separated by age and maturity.

Paper brief

Loading…

Cite this work

Citation unavailable for this work.

BibTeX RIS CSL-JSON

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Citations in this library

Citation map →

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 21 citations exist upstream.

References

1992THE NEW PENOLOGY: NOTES ON THE EMERGING STRATEGY OF CORRECTIONS AND ITS IMPLICATIONS*1991Justice by Geography: Urban, Suburban, and Rural Variations in Juvenile Justice Administration 1996The Transfer of Juveniles to Criminal Court: Does it Make a Difference?2000The Changing Borders of Juvenile Justice: Transfer of Adolescents to the Criminal Court 1996Factors Perceived to Affect Delinquent Dispositions in Juvenile Court: Putting the Sentencing Decision into Context 1994Serious Juvenile Offenders: Predicting the Probability of Transfer to Criminal Court 1990The justice juggernaut: fighting street crime, controlling citizens 2000Juvenile Transfers to Criminal Court in the 1990's: Lessons Learned From Four Studies

Cited by

2006Punishment and Control: Juvenile Justice Reform in the USA 2022Extending the long arm of the law: punishment and rehabilitation as motives of public support for handling violent juvenile offenders as adults

Explore the map →

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.

Imported from OpenAlex (CC0) — nothing here is generated.