Juveniles Arrested for Serious Felony Crimes in Oregon and 'Remanded' to Adult Criminal Courts - A Statistical Study

• NCJ Number: 97782
• Author(s): James Paul Heuser, Ph.D., Oregon Crime Analysis Center
• Date Published: March 1985
• Publication Type: Publication

Annotation

This statistical profile of juveniles arrested for serious felony crimes in Oregon in 1980 and subsequently remanded to the adult criminal court supports the view that remanded juveniles are usually older males with extensive juvenile court histories involving predatory property crime.

Abstract

The research examined the computerized criminal history (CCH) and juvenile court case files for 99 juveniles associated with 114 recorded Part I felony arrests in 1980. Approximately 88 percent were white males and 92 percent were over 17 years old at the date of arrest. Only 8 percent of the sample had one or more prior CCH arrests in Oregon, but 64 had one or more arrests after the 1980 arrest. Only 3 of the 99 had no juvenile court referrals prior to the 1980 felony arrest. Of the 96 with priors, almost 98 percent had prior referrals resulting in adjudication, and 53 percent had a prior adjudication that resulted in commitment to a State training school. The average age of the first known juvenile court referral for the remanded juveniles was 12.97 years. In 96 cases, charges were eventually filed in court, and 81 percent of these filings resulted in conviction on some charge. Over half of the convicted juveniles were sentenced to some period of incarceration. Both court filings and conviction rates were higher for these juveniles than for adults. Of the arrests of remanded juveniles, 16.7 percent involved violent crime and 83.3 percent were property crime charges. Again, adult rates for felony arrests involving violence were higher than the juveniles' rates. The report also presents statistics on arrestees' county of residence, length of sentence imposed and where served, types of charges in prior juvenile court referrals, and factors applied in the decision to remand to the adult court. Tables and coding forms are supplied.