Evaluation of Waiver Effects in Maryland, 1998-2000 (ICPSR 4077)

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Date of Collection View help for Date of Collection

Study Purpose View help for Study Purpose

The purpose of this research was to assist policymakers in determining if the targeted youths affected by the waiver laws passed by the Maryland legislature in 1994 and 1998 were being processed as intended. The waiver laws not only affected the lives of youths but also changed the court of original jurisdiction to the adult court for 1,500 youths per year. The waiver laws were enacted to ensure that a youth who was unwilling to comply with treatment and/or committed a serious offense would have a serious consequence to his/her action and, therefore, would be processed in the adult system. This research project set out to pursue the following three objectives: (1) to develop prediction models of waiver by asking whether the decision to waive or reverse waive was based on the five legislative criteria for waiver and whether the waiver group could be predicted from the legislative criteria or whether there were other factors more predictive, (2) to create profiles of the youths in each waiver category by asking who was being waived in Maryland and what their characteristics were, and (3) to compare 1990-1992 overrepresentation results to 1998-1999 data for various decision points and extension into the adult system by asking whether the waiver further exacerbated an already disproportionate minority system.

Study Design View help for Study Design

As a result of the legislation, four pathways of court processing emerged which created four groups of youths to study: at-risk of waiver (not waived), waiver, legislative waiver, and reverse waiver. The at-risk and reverse waiver youths were processed in the juvenile justice system, and the waiver and legislative waiver youths were processed in the adult system. During 1998, 599 youths housed in Maryland's secure commitment facilities created the population of at-risk youths for this study. There were 1,200 legislatively waived youths, of whom only 66 could be identified by the Division of Corrections (DOC) because they were under 18 at the time of admission (October 1998 to March 1999). The reverse waiver group was randomly selected from those identified as being returned to the juvenile justice system. A variety of data sources in both the juvenile and adult systems were triangulated to obtain the necessary information to accurately describe the youths involved. The triangulation of data from multiple file sources happened in a variety of formats (automated data sets, hardcopy files, and electronic files) from a variety of agencies to compare and contrast youths processed in the juvenile and adult systems. Triangulation is the process of examining a phenomenon from varied perspectives to verify or support the findings of a study. For example, to determine if a youth had delinquent peers, it was not sufficient to read the Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ) file and see if the case worker reported delinquent peers. Triangulation included reviewing the parental summary of the youth's activities in the home and reviewing the court files to determine if the youth had co-defendants. The five legislative criteria (age, mental and physical condition, amenability to treatment, crime seriousness, and public safety) plus extra-legal data were used as a framework to profile the youths in this study. Many of the variables chosen to explore each domain were included in previous studies. Other variables, such as those designed to operationalize mental health issues (not defined by the legislation), were chosen to extend the literature and to generate the most complete profile of youths processed in each system.

Sample View help for Sample

From the population of at-risk (N = 599), waived (N = 258), reverse waived (N = 282), and legislatively waived (N = approximately 1,200) Maryland youths, a disproportionate stratified sample of 298 youths processed in 1998 was selected. From lists provided by the Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ), a stratified disproportionate random sample of cases from counties that represented both rural and urban Maryland was extracted from the population resulting in at-risk (N = 69), waiver (N = 105), and reverse waiver (N = 72) youths. All files that could be readily located were included from the Maryland Department of Correction list (N = 52). As the manual file review progressed, it became evident that the waiver codes used in the DJJ automated data were incorrect. Therefore, the final sample sizes varied by as much as 47 percent error from the original sample sizes by category -- at-risk (N = 79), waived (N = 123), reverse waived (N = 38), and legislatively waived (N = 58) -- which demonstrates the necessity of triangulation to ensure that the results were accurate.

Universe View help for Universe

Urban and rural youths ages 12 to 19 processed in the Maryland court system in 1998.

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Data Source View help for Data Source

Data Type(s) View help for Data Type(s)

Description of Variables View help for Description of Variables

Variables pertinent to the five legislative criteria include age (at current offense/intake), mental condition (mention of prior psychological or psychiatric evaluations or commitments, notations of prior mental health counseling, the presence of relevant DSM [Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders] diagnoses, current or previous use of psychotropic medications, exposure to trauma, experiencing or witnessing serious injury, and information on suicide attempts), physical condition (birth complications, number of hospitalizations, and traumatic factors such as head injuries and loss of oxygen to the brain), amenability to treatment (gang involvement, a history of delinquent peers, employment history), crime seriousness (gun use in offense, total prior crimes including current), and public safety (safety risk). In addition, demographic and family information was also studied based on its pertinence to the waiver decision, such as gender, race, height, and weight information on each offender, rural versus urban environments, birthplace, socioeconomic status, family structure, the presence and absence of an adult male in the home, family support structure, familial criminal and drug abuse history information, special education needs, number of grades repeated, a history of attendance problems, expulsions, and/or suspensions.

Response Rates View help for Response Rates

Not applicable.

Presence of Common Scales View help for Presence of Common Scales

None.

Original Release Date View help for Original Release Date

2005-03-04

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