Young Adult Offenders: An Important Sub-Population in Need of Justice Reform July 27, 2021
How to deal with young adult offenders
is currently one of the most important areas of justice reform. The criminal
laws of most European countries provide for special arrangements to be made
when dealing with young adults in either criminal or juvenile law. Offenders
age 18 to 21 are dealt with differently than older adults in 19 European
countries including Austria, Germany, and the Netherlands. However, in most
western jurisdictions where and how to draw the line between the adult and
youth justice systems has been an ongoing and sometimes contentious debate.
Only recently has Canada and the United States began to consider the validity
of treating young adults as a unique and special
sub-population within the adult system.
Developmental
psychology suggests empirically supported justifications for the differential
treatment of young adults within the legal system. The courts have also recognized
that age is an imperfect proxy for diminished capacity. The age of eighteen
(the age of adult criminal responsibility in Canada and the United States) is
arbitrary rather than evidence-based given that cognitive functioning changes
quite gradually. There is strong evidence that, from a neurological
perspective, the human brain is not fully developed in its capacity for
cognitive functioning and emotional regulation until well into young adulthood.
Maturity affects impulsivity, reasoning, consequential thinking, and the legal
argument around maturity is often referred to as the sophistication-maturity
nexus. Research suggests that brain
development continues long after the age of eighteen and is not likely fully
mature until age twenty- five. In Roper versus Simmons, (which ultimately concluded that the
death penalty was unconstitutional for juveniles in the United States) the
majority recognized the psychological, neuro-scientific explanations for
youthfulness and noted that the qualities that distinguish juveniles from
adults do not disappear at 18.
From
a psychological perspective, psychosocial capacities and moral reasoning
abilities vary considerably between individuals so that some remain immature
longer than others, including after the legal age of adulthood. As a group,
young adult offenders are more like adolescents than adults with respect to
features such as executive functioning, impulse control, malleability,
responsibility, susceptibility to peer influence, and competence. Certainly,
they do not reach all the attributes associated with our conceptions of
“adulthood” by age eighteen.
Thus, age is not a reliable marker of
maturity in most young people, but in particular for those in conflict with the
law. In fact, developmental psychologists now recognize the age from late teens
to mid-twenties as a distinct developmental stage, distinguishable from both
adolescence and adulthood. Scholarly attention to this developmental period has
increased tremendously in recent years and it is now widely referred to as
“emerging adulthood,” a phrase first coined by psychologist Jeffrey Arnett
(2000). Arnett (2000) argues that individuals in the eighteen to twenty-four
year age range constitute a developmentally distinct sub-group of the adult
population. Additionally, he maintains that it is a critical period - biologically,
socially, and legally - for the transition into adulthood. Emerging adults
struggle if they are part of especially vulnerable populations such as those
aging out of foster care, coming out of the criminal justice system, or
experiencing disabilities. Thus the added stressors of transitioning to
adulthood may overwhelm the already compromised coping capabilities of some
young adults.
Differences
in philosophy that characterize youth and adult justice systems have generally
meant that youth and adult custody institutions have very different
organizational climates, considerations, and precedents, whether that be in court
rooms or correctional facilities. For example, adult prisons tend to be focused
on security and order through various demonstrations of correctional power. Young
adults are disadvantaged in these types of adult-oriented, authoritarian type
facilities in ways that can heighten the negative impacts of prison on young
people.
Young
adult offenders are still an under recognized group in many western
jurisdictions. The evidence from developmental psychology and the
criminological and sociological literature suggests that young adults
constitute a distinct and important
sub-group of the adult offender population. It is time for a developmentally
informed and appropriate justice model for this group of young people.
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Orion Policy Institute (OPI) is an independent, non-profit, tax-exempt think tank focusing on a broad range of issues at the local, national, and global levels. OPI does not take institutional policy positions. Accordingly, all views, positions, and conclusions represented herein should be understood to be solely those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of OPI.