Sentencing Guidelines and the Transformation of Juvenile Justice in the Twenty-First Century

As we enter the 21st century, many States have introduced fundamental changes to their juvenile justice systems. The changes focus on jurisdictional authority, especially transfer to adult court; sentencing guidelines and options; correctional programming; inter-agency information-sharing; offender confidentiality; and victim involvement. At the same time, attention has turned increasingly to prevention, early intervention, rehabilitation, and the use of specialized courts. Because of their special significance in the historical context of the juvenile court, this paper focuses on the emergence of sentencing guidelines to identify underlying trends and issues in the transformation of juvenile justice. In so doing, the paper argues that the considerable attention given by policymakers and researchers to transfer rather than other changes provides a distorted picture of current juvenile justice practice.