In the past decade, developmental brain research has had an important influence on juvenile crime regulation. More recently, advocates and some policy makers have argued that the developmental research should shape the law’s response to young adult offenders. Developmental scientists have found that biological and psychological development continues into the early 20, and that 18 to 21 year old adults are more like younger adolescents than older adults in their impulsivity under some conditions. Further, like teenagers, young adults engage in risky behavior, such as drinking, smoking, unsafe sex, using drugs, and offending, to a greater extent than older adults. The possibility that much risky behavior, including involvement in criminal activity, is a product of psychological and social immaturity, raises the question of whether the presumption of reduced culpability and greater potential for reform should be applied to young adult offenders as well as to juveniles. This essay explores the potential implications for justice policy of the recent research on young adults. In doing so, we emphasize the importance of not exaggerating the available research findings, which do not indicate that individuals between 18 and 21 are indistinguishable from younger adolescents in attributes relevant to offending and punishment. Thus, we are skeptical on both scientific and pragmatic grounds about the merits of the proposal that juvenile court jurisdiction should be categorically extended to age 21. But the research does suggest that young adults, like juveniles, are more prone to risk-taking and that they act more impulsively than older adults in ways that likely influence their criminal conduct. Moreover, correctional reform is justified because young adult offenders, like non-criminal young adults and juvenile offenders, are more likely to become productive members of society if they are provided with the tools to do so during a critical developmental period. Policymakers today can draw lessons from the developmental model that has shaped juvenile justice reform. At the heart of this reform is a conception of adolescence as a distinct stage between childhood and adulthood. Juvenile justice programs increasingly respond to the developmental needs of adolescent offenders, as the best means of reducing crime and promoting their productive engagement in society. The developmental stage of young adulthood has taken on heightened importance as a period of preparation for adult roles. We conclude that the research supports a regime that recognizes young adults as a transitional category between juveniles and older adult offenders.
Memory issues are well-known in legal trials that involve the reliability of eyewitnesses in criminal cases. However, the relevance of memory to law...
Evidence law controls what information will be admissible in court and when, how, and by whom it may be presented. It shapes not only the trial...
This casebook aspires to help students understand and think systematically about the techniques of statutory interpretation. It blends exposition with...
Supreme Court opinions involving race and the jury invariably open with the Fourteenth Amendment, the Civil Rights Act of 1875, or landmark cases like...
On January 1, 2022, the most radical change to the American jury in at least thirty-five years occurred in Arizona: peremptory strikes, long a feature...
Professor Elizabeth Scott, the chief reporter of the American Law Institute’s (ALI) Restatement of Children and the Law, has often observed that the...
In New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, Justice Thomas’s majority opinion announced that the key to applying originalist methodology...
How should judges decide hard cases involving rights conflicts? Standard debates about this question are usually framed in jurisprudential terms...
Berryessa et al. (2022) consider how prior experience as a criminal prosecutor may influence judicial behaviour, but their concerns about prior...
For several days, former President Donald Trump and his 18 co-defendants in a Georgia election interference case trickled into the Fulton County Jail...
Virginia adopted a risk assessment to help determine sentencing for sex offenders. It was incorporated as a one-way ratchet toward higher sentences...
Forensic evidence has become a common tool in police investigations and a familiar form of evidence at trial. Forensic scientists are trained to...
Courts routinely use low cash bail as a financial incentive to ensure that released defendants appear in court and abstain from crime. This can create...
Scott Lilienfeld warned that psychology’s ideological uniformity would lead to premature closure on sensitive topics. He encouraged psychologists to...
A federal grand jury in Florida indicted former President Donald Trump on June 8, 2023, on multiple criminal charges related to classified documents...
We examined how the presentation of risk assessment results and the race of the person charged affected pretrial court actors’ recommendations to...
In our increasingly polarized society, claims that prosecutions are politically motivated, racially motivated, or just plain arbitrary are more common...
The lawyer-client relationship is pivotal in providing access to courts. This paper presents results from a large-scale field experiment exploring how...