In a short research brief, Jeff Butts of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice and one of the nation’s leading researchers on juvenile justice issues, concludes that there is simply no correlation between transferring or prosecuting youth in adult courts and the falling rates of youth crime. Titled Transfer of Juveniles to Criminal Court is Not Correlated with Falling Youth Violence, Butts utilizes a sample of states (based on validity and accessibility of data) to illustrate that any correlation between treating youthful offenders as adults and the decrease in youth crime is simply coincidence, refuting claims from some that transfer policies of the 1990’s have “been working”.

As we have noted in previous blog posting and our publication titled State of the Juvenile Justice in Wisconsin: What do we Really Know? youth arrests, secure placements, petitions, and waivers have all gone down dramatically over the past decade. This recent research lends credence to our conclusion that lowering the age of adult court to 17 in Wisconsin is unlikely, in fact probably not, the reason youth crime has gone down so dramatically.     By Jim Moeser