![Sample our Bioscience journals, sign in here to start your access, Latest two full volumes FREE to you for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5925/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Bioscience.jpg"})
Abstract
Two measures relevant to the assessment of juvenile offenders for transfer to adult court, the Risk-Sophistication-Treatment Inventory (RSTI) and the Structured Assessment of Violence Risk in Youth (SAVRY), were evaluated in the present study. Seventy-four adolescents considered for transfer were scored on these tools using file information, and clinicians’ transfer reports were coded for judgments of risk, maturity, and treatment amenability. Scores on RSTI Risk, Criminal Sophistication, and Treatment Amenability scales and SAVRY Total and Protective scales were significantly associated with adult sentences. Further, RSTI Criminal Sophistication explained significant additional variance in the adult sentencing decision beyond other legal criteria such as offense severity. However, scores on the RSTI Sophistication-Maturity scale were not associated with adult sentences. Results provide support for the use of the RSTI and the SAVRY, underscore the potential importance of psychological characteristics to adult sentencing decisions, and reflect challenges inherent in psycho-legal assessments of maturity.
This research was supported in part by grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the American Psychology-Law Society. Grateful acknowledgement extends to Gary Kumka and the staff at Youth Forensic Psychiatric services for their help in facilitating this project. We also thankfully acknowledge the contributions of Melissa Hendry, Alan Markwart, Chris Zatylny, Sherylyn Arabsky, and Shihong Mu during the study. Finally, we thank several anonymous reviewers for their comments on a previous draft of this manuscript.
Notes
1The enactment of the YCJA in 2003 represented a significant shift in procedures of transfer to adult court, notably eliminating the process of transfer in favor of allowing youth court to give both juvenile and adult sentences. Thus, in order to examine whether the inclusion of youths evaluated under the YCJA had affected results, these participants (n = 10) were excluded and analyses were re-run. These analyses revealed that mean differences in SAVRY Total scores between participants sentenced as juveniles versus those sentenced as adults became nonsignificant, but that this scale still remained a significant predictor of an adult sentence based on its AUC value (.70, p< .01). All other previously reported relationships remained significant.
2Clinicians’ statements regarding whether youth should be transferred or sentenced as an adult were not explicitly coded. As such, exact frequencies of such statements are unknown.