Doctoral Dissertation Research: Between Two Worlds: Prosecuting Adolescents in Juvenile and Criminal Courts

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This project will examines how adolescents are prosecuted and sentenced for delinquent acts in criminal courts compared to juvenile courts. In particular, different stages of case processing - pretrial detention, waiver, adjudication, and sentencing - will be compared between three different juvenile courts in New Jersey and three different criminal courts in New York. The project will examine several hypothesized sources of differences between these courts. Namely, whether the organization and structural arrangements of the forums shape the actions of each court. These arrangements include the physical and architectural layout of the court, the goals and normative frameworks adopted by the court actors, the rules of operation and organization of the courts, and the formal organizational structures of legal institutions. The project will also explore the hypothesis that the qualities of the individual cases or defendants will affect the processing and outcome of a case. The project will utilize ethnographic and interview data to test these hypotheses. A comparative study of adolescents processed in juvenile and criminal courts is important because it bears on both sociological and policy questions. It adds to the organizational literature by testing its applicability to the prosecution of adolescents in juvenile and criminal courts.