Award Date

5-2009

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts in Criminal Justice

Department

Criminal Justice

First Committee Member

M. Alexis Kennedy, Chair

Second Committee Member

Tamara Madensen

Third Committee Member

Randall Shelden

Graduate Faculty Representative

Barbara Brents

Number of Pages

87

Abstract

Juvenile certification is the method by which a juvenile may be removed from juvenile court jurisdiction and placed in the adult criminal court jurisdiction. In many cases, juvenile courts exercise judicial certifications, in which a judge determines if the case will be heard in juvenile or adult court. Many factors influence a judge's determination of certification outcomes. Legal factors include dangerousness, amenability, and maturity of the youth. Extra-legal factors include race and sex. Although judges are believed to be impartial, prior research has found that these bias factors may influence outcomes. This study assesses what factors are influential in one Clark County juvenile court judge's certification decisions. The study further evaluates whether the safety of the community is being served by certifying youth. In contrast to previous research, the current research finds that juveniles are being treated equivalently

Keywords

Criminal courts; Discrimination in criminal justice administration; Juvenile courts; Juvenile justice; Administration of; Race discrimination; Sex discrimination

Disciplines

Criminology and Criminal Justice | Juvenile Law | Law | Race and Ethnicity

File Format

pdf

Degree Grantor

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Language

English

Comments

Signatures have been redacted for privacy and security measures.

Rights

IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

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