Transferring Juvenile Defendants From Adult to Juvenile Court: How Maryland Forensic Evaluators and Judges Reach Their Decisions

Article Figures & Data

Table 1

Univariate Analyses With Judges' Decisions as the Dependent Variable, Arranged Roughly From the Strongest Relation to the Weakest

Variable	χ²	p	φ	Odds Ratio	Likelihood of Transfer (%)
Evaluator opinion	47.83	<.001	0.55	12.21	77
Amenability to treatment	39.59	<.001	0.53	12.54	72.4
Risk to public safety	27.20	<.001	−0.45	7.69	78.4 (low risk)
DJS involvement, two groupings	26.27	<.001	−0.41	5.88	74.3 (no DJS involvement)
History of offenses	23.41	<.001	−0.38	7.52	82.9 (no history)
Emotional maturity	6.66	<.01	−0.34	4.18	67.6 (immature)
Enrolled in school	11.04	<.001	0.26	2.94	63.6
Substance use	7.44	<.006	−0.22	2.54	57.9 (not using)
Weapon	6.74	<.009	−0.21	3.85	75
Age at evaluation	4.52	<.05	0.17	1.97	58.5 (younger)
Age at offense	3.88	<.050	0.16	1.87	57.8 (younger)
Gender	3.98	<.050	−0.16	2.56	69.6 (female)
DJS involvement, three groupings	29.64	<.001	NA	NA	NA
Employment history	3.80	<.06	0.16	1.92	60.3
Children	3.66	<.06	−0.16	2.27	35.7 (with children)

The original sample was 200. The number included in the analyses varied from 161 to 58 because various data were missing in the reviewed evaluations.

Table 2

Univariate Analyses With Evaluators' Recommendations as the Dependent Variable, Arranged Roughly From the Strongest Relation to the Weakest

Variable	χ²	p	φ	Odds Ratio	Likelihood of Transfer (%)
Amenability to treatment	94.19	<.001	0.82	141.56	89.7
Risk to public safety	58.23	<.001	−0.66	62.50	96.1 (low risk)
Emotional maturity	30.14	<.001	−0.72	40.00	84.8 (immature)
DJS involvement, three groupings	50.54	<.001	NA	NA	NA
DJS involvement, two groupings	44.33	<.001	−0.54	13.16	87.1 (no history)
History of offenses	24.61	<.001	−0.39	10.99	90.2 (no history)
Enrolled in school	16.59	<.001	0.32	3.91	74
Age at offense	16.05	<.001	0.32	3.75	72.3 (younger)
Substance use	8.93	<.003	−0.24	2.75	65.4 (younger)
Weapon	7.54	<.006	−0.22	5.15	85
Age at evaluation	8.48	<.004	0.23	2.57	68.3 (younger)
Children	6.15	<.02	−0.20	2.87	35.7
Race	5.49	<.02	−0.19	8.70	NA