 Juvenile or adult? Negotiating and contesting childhood in the courtroomJeffrey J. Shook Children and Youth Services Review, 2013, vol. 35, issue 8, 1236-1244 Abstract: Legislative changes during the 1980s and 1990s made it easier to treat juveniles as adults in the U.S. justice system. Research on the sentencing outcomes of juveniles in the criminal court has been somewhat mixed, with some studies showing that they receive severe or long sentences and others showing that many young people receive probation or relatively short jail or prison sentences. Less attention has been placed on the process through which these cases move through the criminal court and the ways in which the labels of “juvenile” and “adult” are negotiated and contested by legal actors. Using both qualitative and quantitative data, this article examines the negotiation of these labels. While it finds that legal rules are important in establishing the potential outcomes in a case, the power of specific actors and the context of specific courtrooms are also important in shaping the negotiations and contestations over these labels. The article provides a framework to understand outcomes and presents ways that advocates can become involved in helping to shape the outcomes of these cases. Keywords: Juvenile justice; Criminal justice; Courts; Punishment; Juveniles (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:cysrev:v:35:y:2013:i:8:p:1236-1244 DOI: 10.1016/j.childyouth.2013.04.010 Access Statistics for this article Children and Youth Services Review is currently edited by Duncan Lindsey More articles in Children and Youth Services Review from Elsevier |
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