Pathways of Transferred Youth Offenders into Adulthood
| Author | Els Dumortier,Yana Jaspers,Jenneke Christiaens,An Nuytiens |
| DOI | 10.1177/1473225417700324 |
| Published date | 01 August 2017 |
| Date | 01 August 2017 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1473225417700324
Youth Justice
2017, Vol. 17(2) 153 –170
© The Author(s) 2017
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DOI: 10.1177/1473225417700324
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Pathways of Transferred Youth
Offenders into Adulthood
Yana Jaspers, An Nuytiens,
Jenneke Christiaens and Els Dumortier
Abstract
In this article, the authors discuss the preliminary results of a Belgian research on 210 young offenders
transferred to Adult Court in 1999, 2000 and 2001. The long-term judicial pathways of these youngsters,
now aged between 30 and 40, are explored. Drawing on the criminal records and detention records of the
sample, judicial pathways into adulthood are charted. The results show that the greater part of the sample is
still involved in the criminal justice system. More than 50 per cent were convicted at some point in the last 3
years, and almost a third of the population is imprisoned. With this quite unfavourable picture of transferred
offenders’ future pathways, we hope to reopen the discussion about transfer policies in Belgium.
Keywords
Belgium, delinquent and judicial pathways, juvenile transfer, longitudinal research
Introduction
Since its emergence in 1912, the Belgian juvenile justice system has always been under-
pinned by the idea that children have to be protected and (re)educated rather than pun-
ished. Within this protection (or welfare) model, young offenders are not considered to be
responsible for their offences (Christiaens and Nuytiens, 2009). Since 2006, restorative
justice responses to youth offending have been prioritised in the new Youth Protection Act
(YPA) (Put et al., 2012). Young offenders appear in the Youth Court, where protective and
restorative youth measures (and not punishments) are imposed ‘in the best interest of the
child’. The main purpose of a juvenile justice intervention is the rehabilitation and re-
education of the youngster. There is, however, an exception to this rule. If the Youth Court
decides that the youth protection measures are no longer suitable for the re-education of
the juvenile offender aged 16 or over, the youngster can be transferred. The Youth Court
Corresponding author:
Yana Jaspers, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Crime & Society Research Group, Criminology Department, Pleinlaan 2,
1050 Brussels, Belgium.
Email: yana.jaspers@vub.ac.be
700324YJJ0010.1177/1473225417700324Youth JusticeJaspers et al.
research-article2017
Article
154 Youth Justice 17(2)
may deduct the unsuitability of the youth protection measures from the severity of the
offence(s) or from the failure of previously imposed measures (see below). In this case,
the young offender will be tried and judged as an adult according to the rules and regula-
tions of the penal law, either in the Extended Youth Court or in the Crown Court (‘Hof van
Assisen’) (De Smet, 2007).
While the application rate of transfer has always remained quite low (Gilbert et al.,
2012; Nuytiens et al., 2005),1 the procedure has continuously been a point of debate in
Belgium, both from a scientific and from a political point of view. The controversial
nature of this mechanism is twofold. First, the fact that transferred minors are judged like
adults conflicts with a children’s rights perspective (Comité Contre la Torture, 2008;
Christiaens and Nuytiens, 2009). Even though, since the new YPA of 2006, the majority
of transferred juveniles are tried in an Extended Youth Court and not in an Adult Court,
the penal law and criminal procedures are still applied to these juveniles. This is in con-
flict with international children’s rights guidelines such as the United Nations (UN)
General Comment n°10 on Children’s Rights in Juvenile Justice (UN Committee on the
Rights of the Child, 2007). As a consequence, the UN Committee on the Rights of the
Child (2010) has urged the Belgian State to ‘review its legislation, with the aim of elimi-
nating the possibility that children can be tried as adults and detained with adults’ (p. 18).
Second, numerous studies have consistently shown that transfer has a negative impact on
young offenders’ criminal careers. Transferred juveniles relapse into criminal behaviour
more often and at a higher rate than juveniles with similar profiles who were retained within
the juvenile justice system (Bishop and Frazier, 2000; Fagan, 1996; Howell, 2003; Johnson
et al., 2011; Lanza-Kaduce et al., 2005; Myers, 2003; Redding, 2000, 2008; Singer, 1996).
When recidivism of transferred juveniles is compared to that of juveniles retained within the
youth justice system, transfer is recurrently linked to higher recidivism and has no apparent
deterrent effect. On the contrary, an extensive literature review on the effect of juvenile
transfer reveals that transferring juveniles to the adult system amplifies the violent behav-
iour during their trajectory. McGowan et al. (2007) conclude that ‘transferring juveniles to
the adult justice system is counterproductive as a strategy for deterring subsequent violence’
(p. 15). It seems that transferring juveniles to the adult criminal justice system increases the
risk of recidivism, regardless of the youngster’s risk level. The Washington State Institute
for Public Policy followed 1300 youngsters who had been transferred since 1994. Recidivism
rates appeared to be significantly higher for the transferred juveniles than for those who
remained within the youth justice system (Drake, 2013). Some studies, however, suggest
that transfer might have both positive and negative effects on recidivism. More specifically,
transfer may have a positive effect on recidivism for transferred youngsters with no or very
few previous offences (Entorf, 2012; Loughran et al., 2010). Yet, most studies demonstrate
an iatrogenic effect of juvenile transfer on subsequent delinquent pathways.
Despite two studies on juvenile transfer in Belgium (Nuytiens et al., 2005, 2006), we
were not able to confirm or refute the results of these international studies. A first short-
coming was the lack of a long-term perspective. In the first study (Nuytiens et al., 2005),
youngsters who had been transferred in 1999, 2000 and/or 2001 in the five districts with
the highest numbers of transfer decisions (Antwerp, Mons, Brussels, Charleroi and
Mechelen) were the focus of the research. We analysed the Youth Court files of all
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