Publication
The juvenile justice and criminal justice systems have different goals (Kupchik, 2003). While both are concerned with community safety and accountability, the juvenile system has a focus on rehabilitation where the criminal system is oriented toward punishment. However, every state also has mechanisms to move youth into the criminal (“adult”) justice system for processing and sanctioning when they are accused of particularly serious offenses. All states have statutes that permit or mandate the waiver or transfer of youth into the criminal system for trial and sentencing. Some have mechanisms that subject youth to both juvenile and criminal justice system sanctions in a sentencing scheme known as “blended sentencing.” States with blended sentencing statutes combine rehabilitative juvenile justice system intervention with the possibility of more punitive criminal justice system sanctions should rehabilitative services prove ineffective. The criminal sanctions are initially stayed or suspended while the juvenile court disposition is imposed, with the option to impose the more severe “adult” sentence should the youth reoffend or otherwise violate the terms of the juvenile disposition.