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Abstract
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New York's Juvenile Offender (JO) Law of 1978 is a significant step away from separate systems of justice for adults and juveniles. The law requires that juveniles accused of violent offenses be tried in criminal court, and it provides penalties comparable to those for adults. This paper evaluates the impact of the JO Law on violent juvenile crime rates in New York City and in upstate New York. Analyzing arrest data through the use of an interrupted time series model, we conclude that the JO Law has not been effective in reducing juvenile crime.
VioLit summary:
OBJECTIVE:
The objective of this research by Singer and McDowall was to evaluate the impact of the New York Juvenile Offender Law upon the rates of violent juvenile crime in New York City.
METHODOLOGY:
The authors employed a quasi-experimental interrupted time series analysis to evaluate the impact of the Juvenile Offender Law by comparing the levels of a time series - monthly juvenile arrests between January 1974 and December 1984 - both before and after an intervention - the introduction of the Juvenile Offender Law in September 1978. Arrest totals were provided by individual jurisdictions to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Uniform Crime Report, and data were collected for individuals between the ages of 13 and 15 for each of five crimes: homicide, rape, robbery, assault and arson. Analyses were conducted for New York City, for upstate New York and for Philadelphia for each of the five types of crime. Initial data manipulation involved controlling for within - series variation by developing a noise model to account for variations in seasonality, nonstationarity and autocorrelation. For each series, a number of different intervention models were included for consideration: an abrupt and permanent change model, one that involved abrupt but temporary change, and one that included use of a gradual and permanent change. The first model, using abrupt and permanent change, was adopted as the most appropriate for each series. The experimental group consisted of the 13 to 15 year olds in New York City, whilst control groups were formed from arrest data on 16 to 19 year olds in the City, 13 to 15 year olds in Philadelphia, and 13 to 15 year olds and 16 to 19 year olds in upstate New York.
FINDINGS/DISCUSSION:
The New York City Juvenile Offender Law provided for a shift away from the separate treatment of juveniles and adults, by allowing more punitive measures to be applied to serious young offenders, who would be tried in adult criminal court. The authors found that most of the experimental series were not affected by the intervention period. Homicide and assault arrests in New York City showed no change after the introduction of the Juvenile Offender Law, although arrests did decrease for both crimes in Philadelphia. For upstate New York, homicide rates showed no change, although assault arrest rates increased. Thus the introduction of the Law seemed to have no effect upon homicide or assault rates. Whilst rape and arson arrest rates decreased among 13 to 15 year olds in New York City, they also showed similar drops for 16 to 19 year olds, and they remained stable in upstate New York, with a decrease in arson in Philadelphia. Thus the decrease found among the young group in the City might just have been part of a general trend that was occurring amongst other groups in other areas as well, with no effect of the Law upon either rape or arson. Robbery arrests among 13 to 15 year olds in New York City and in upstate New York increased insignificantly after the Juvenile Offender Law had been introduced, although in two of the control series - the Philadelphia group and the 16 to 19 year olds in upstate New York - arrest rates for robbery significantly increased. Although the Law did not cause a decrease in robberies in the target group, it might have prevented an increase in arrest rates. However, differences between the groups were small, and the effectiveness of the Law in preventing an increase was seen by the authors as an implausible argument. The authors concluded that overall, their findings strongly supported the conclusion that the Juvenile Offender Law had no effect on rates of juvenile crime. They offer three explanations for the failure of the Law to reduce juvenile crime. Firstly, the Law might have been too weak to produce any significant effect upon crime rates, by not increasing the risk of punishment. However, the number of juveniles incarcerated since the Law came into effect had more than tripled, so this explanation seemed implausible to the authors - the risk of punishment had sufficiently increased. A second explanation offered by the authors was that the Juvenile Offender Law had no effect upon crime rates because youth were not responsive to the provisions of the Law, by not being deterred by the increase in severity and certainty of punishment. A last explanation was that the amount of time that had passed since the implementation of the Law was not enough to evaluate accurately its effectiveness in reducing crime rates.
EVALUATION:
The authors present a sophisticated and interesting analysis of the influence of the Juvenile Offender Law upon crime rates in New York City. The use of time series analysis, and the inclusion of a number of control groups, allowed for the comparison of results in the experimental area to other general trends that were occurring, and threats to internal validity, such as history and instrumentation, were controlled for as much as possible. The primary drawback with this research is its reliance upon official data as its source - such official records have been shown to substantially underestimate the true levels of crime that are taking place within the community, and are affected by arrest policies and practices, visibility of crimes, police funding, and many other uncontrolled factors. Actual numbers of arrests would have been an interesting additional piece of information, as would have separate analyses for males and females, anglos and non-whites, and individuals from different socio-economic status groups, in order to determine if there existed any differential effect of the Juvenile Offender Law upon these various groups. A more thorough discussion of the implications of these findings for future policy planning would also have been helpful. Even with some methodological drawbacks, the authors have still presented an excellent piece of well-written research which could help to inform policy and prevention planning in the years ahead. (CSPV Abstract - Copyright © 1992-2007 by the Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence, Institute of Behavioral Science, Regents of the University of Colorado)
N1 - Call Number: F-113, AB-113
KW - 1970s
KW - 1980s
KW - Judicial Transfer-Waiver
KW - Juvenile In Adult Court
KW - Juvenile In Justice System
KW - New York
KW - Criminal Justice System
KW - Violence Intervention
KW - Juvenile Offender
KW - Juvenile Violence
KW - Homicide Offender
KW - Homicide Rates
KW - Rape Offender
KW - Rape Rates
KW - Sexual Assault Rates
KW - Sexual Assault Offender
KW - Violence Against Women
KW - Robbery Rates
KW - Robbery Offender
KW - Arson Rates
KW - Arson Offender
KW - Physical Assault Offender
KW - Physical Assault Rates
KW - Legislation Effects
KW - Justice System Intervention
KW - Intervention Effectiveness
KW - Intervention Program
KW - Intervention Evaluation
KW - Program Effectiveness
KW - Program Evaluation
KW - Juvenile Crime
KW - Juvenile Delinquency
KW - Delinquency Intervention
KW - Crime Intervention
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