As greater attention is paid to variation in cognitive development, especially across "younger" adults, criminal justice responses are almost inevitable. One such example involves an ongoing experiment in the Netherlands where, since 2014, legislation now allows courts to sentence young adults (ages 18 to 22, inclusive) under either juvenile or adult sentencing guidelines. The underling idea motivating this experiment is that some "young adult" offenders are less mature than others and, as such, may benefit more from the comparatively more "pedagogically oriented" juvenile sanctions than from adult sanctions that emphasize deterrence. In a recent paper, Characteristics of Young Adults Sentenced with Juvenile Sanctions in the Netherlands, Lise Prop (Govt. of the Netherlands) et al., exploit data on 583 criminal cases involving young adults to gain some initial empirical footing about whether and, if so, how the sub-pool of young adult criminals sentenced under juvenile guidelines differ from young adults sentenced under the adult guidelines.
Overall, results from their cross-sectional study find that characteristics indicating "maturation" problems across different domains were "more prevalent among young adults sentenced with juvenile sanctions" and, accordingly, provide some initial descriptive support for the impulse to treat young adult offenders differently when it comes to sentencing. The paper's abstract follows.
"Since 1 April 2014, young adults aged 18 up to and including 22 years can be sentenced with juvenile sanctions in the Netherlands. This legislation is referred to as ‘adolescent criminal law’ (ACL). An important reason for the special treatment of young adults is their over-representation in crime. The underlying idea of ACL is that some young adult offenders are less mature than others. These young adults may benefit more from pedagogically oriented juvenile sanctions than from the deterrent focus of adult sanctions. Little is known, however, about the characteristics of the young adults sentenced with juvenile sanctions since the implementation of ACL. The aim of this study is to gain insight into the demographic, criminogenic and criminal case characteristics of young adult offenders sentenced with juvenile sanctions in the first year after the implementation of ACL. A cross-sectional study was conducted using a juvenile sanction group and an adult sanction group. Data on 583 criminal cases of young adults, sanctioned from 1 April 2014 up to March 2015, were included. Data were obtained from the Public Prosecution Service, the Dutch Probation Service and Statistics Netherlands. The results showed that characteristics indicating problems across different domains were more prevalent among young adults sentenced with juvenile sanctions. Furthermore, these young adults committed a greater number of serious offences compared with young adults who were sentenced with adult sanctions. The findings of this study provide support for the special treatment of young adult offenders in criminal law as intended by ACL."
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