Juvenile Record Use in Adult Court Proceedings: A Survey of Prosecutors

Data from a national survey establishes that various constraints normally keep prosecutors from receiving or seeking much juvenile-record information. Although research indicates that juvenile records provide the best indicators and predictors of early adult criminality, various laws and procedures assure that they do not follow (thus, stigmatize) youthful offenders into adulthood. The result is a two-track system in which juvenile and adult justice systems rarely share information that might ensure more appropriate procedural treatment of youthful recidivists. Surprisingly, the protective intent of state statutes evidently has little effect on access to and use of juvenile records. However, it does affect the records' quality, making them ambiguous, incomplete, and, thus, minimally useful to prosecutors. Jurisdictions in which juvenile and adult courts share juvenile records, and when those records are of good quality, usually have other legal procedural policies and characteristics that imply systemwide consensus that juvenile records are pertinent and should be available to the adult system.