What are the consequences to juveniles who receive a waiver to adult courts and end up in adult prisons or jails?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

About 4,000 juvenile delinquency cases are now being transferred to adult courts each year. Waiver has its advocates, but many experts question its utility. One fear is that juveniles will be forced to serve time in adult prisons where they will be exposed to experienced criminals in what are essentially "schools for crime." It should be noted that the suicide rate for juveniles in adult prisons and jails is nearly eight times higher than for juveniles in youth detention centers. They are also five times more likely to be victims of attempted sexual attacks or rapes. Young inmates sent to adult facilities miss out on developing the relatively more supportive, mentoring-focused style of staff-inmate interactions and also have less access to treatment, counseling, and education. Studies on the effects of waiver are conflicting. Research by Benjamin Steiner and Emily Wright found that direct waiver laws have little effect on juvenile violent crime rates in the states that have adopted them. A study in 2017 found that raising the age of criminal responsibility had no discernable effect on public safety. Other studies have found that juveniles waived to adult court receive harsher punishments and may be viewed as dangerous and incapable of being rehabilitated. They may spend more time in juvenile detention awaiting trial. Transfer decisions are not always carried out fairly or equitably, and evidence indicates that minorities are waived to adult court at a rate that is greater than their representation in the population. However, recent data does suggest that the percentage of cases judicially waived to the criminal court is roughly similar for blacks and whites-which is especially true for drug-related offenses.