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Abstract: 

The political appeal of transferring children to adult court and subjecting them to hard time for adult crimes may be understandable, but the practice is problematic at numerous levels. Simply labeling young children as adults does not render them appropriate for the adult criminal justice system: The adult criminal justice system is designed for adults and is ill equipped to meet the special needs presented by young child offenders. In this article, the authors examine the myriad ways that the adult criminal justice system is incompatible with the needs of young children transferred there.

Keywords: juvenile justice

Affiliations:  1: University of Texas at Austin; 2: University of Texas at Austin; 3: University of Texas at Austin; 4: University of Texas at Austin.