In response to public fears surrounding an anticipated rise in youth crime, several forms of punitive juvenile justice legislation were implemented during the “get tough” era of the 1980s and 1990s. In many jurisdictions, some of these policies involved the expansion of the mechanisms by which youth offenders could be transferred from the juvenile justice system to the adult criminal court. Scholars have theorized that the proliferation of juvenile transfer was largely intended to be a means of social control over Black and Hispanic youth, and previous research has reported that commonly-held conceptual associations between race/ethnicity and juvenile offending are connected to fear of crime and punitive sentiments. Further, prior studies have observed that minority youth are more likely than Whites to be transferred to the adult court and also receive harsher sentencing outcomes following transfer. However, little extant research explores how transferred youth are sentenced in the criminal court relative to adult offenders, and no prior study has investigated whether individual-level race/ethnicity as well as county-level racial/ethnic context might condition the effects of juvenility on sentencing severity such that transferred youth are disadvantaged. Using multilevel modeling techniques to analyze data on felony offenders sentenced in Florida circuit courts between 1995 and 2006, the present study first examines whether juvenile status is positively or negatively associated with a sentence to jail or prison as well as sentence length. Next, these analyses explore whether race/ethnicity as well as both race/ethnicity and gender condition the effects of juvenility on these outcomes such that Black and Hispanic transfers, and especially minority males, are sentenced particularly harshly. Finally, in light of the minority threat perspective, this study assesses the interactive influence of transferred juvenile status and county-level racial/ethnic population composition and growth on sentencing severity. Supplementary analyses are also conducted which examine whether the cross-level interaction effects between juvenility and static and dynamic racial/ethnic context are further conditioned by the race or Hispanic ethnicity of offenders. The results indicate that the independent effects of transferred juvenile status are mixed, and juveniles are more likely than adults of various ages to receive sentences to incarceration but receive shorter jail and prison sentences. Interactive relationships between race/ethnicity and juvenility are also observed such that Black and Hispanic transfers are especially likely to receive sentences to incarceration. Further, minority male transferred juveniles are penalized particularly harshly in sentences to jail. The findings regarding the conditional effects of static and dynamic racial/ethnic threat are somewhat inconsistent, but much of the evidence suggests that transferred youth are disadvantaged relative to adults in counties with a greater minority presence and, especially, minority population growth. Further, these targeted effects of county-level racial/ethnic context are found to be stronger among Black and Hispanic offenders than among Whites. Overall, the findings provide support for this study’s theoretical expectations and suggest that sentencing disparities between transferred juveniles and adults are closely connected to race and ethnicity. / A Dissertation submitted to the College of Criminology and Criminal Justice in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester 2019. / March 5, 2019. / Criminal court, Juvenile transfer, Race and ethnicity, Sentencing / Includes bibliographical references. / Ted Chiricos, Professor Directing Dissertation; John Taylor, University Representative; William D. Bales, Committee Member; Carter Hay, Committee Member; Brian J. Stults, Committee Member.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_709784 |
| Contributors | Lehmann, Peter S. (author), Chiricos, Theodore G. (Theodore George) (Professor Directing Dissertation), Taylor, Jeanette E. (University Representative), Bales, William D. (Committee Member), Hay, Carter H. (Committee Member), Stults, Brian J. (Committee Member), Florida State University (degree granting institution), College of Criminology and Criminal Justice (degree granting college) |
| Publisher | Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Language | English, English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, text, doctoral thesis |
| Format | 1 online resource (173 pages), computer, application/pdf |
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