Estimating the Crime Effects of Raising the Age of Majority

Abstract

Research Summary The results of recent empirical research have shown that juveniles do not achieve complete psychosocial maturity until postadolescence and that processing juveniles as adults in the criminal justice system can be associated with elevated rates of criminal recidivism. In response to these as well as other concerns, several states have recently raised their legal ages of majority in the hopes of reducing juvenile offending rates. Connecticut enacted one such law change when it raised its age of majority from 16 to 17 in 2010 and then from 17 to 18 in 2012 for all but the most serious offenses. The effect of Connecticut's policy change on juvenile crime is examined in this study. To discern between changes in juvenile offending and changes in the propensity of police to arrest youthful offenders in the aftermath of a law change, we use two methodological approaches. Synthetic control methods are used to generate triple‐differences estimates of the effect of Connecticut's policy change on juvenile arrests and overall crime rates by using a weighted average of other U.S. states as a natural comparison group. Next, by analyzing National Incident‐Based Reporting System (NIBRS) data for a subset of Connecticut's local jurisdictions, we examine changes in age‐specific juvenile arrests and changes in age‐specific juvenile offending. The resulting evidence suggests that no discernable change in juvenile offending occurred. In addition, evidence exists that in some Connecticut jurisdictions, officer, rather than juvenile, behavior was impacted by this law change. Policy Implications Although raise‐the‐age policies may remain desirable for other policy reasons, no robust evidence of their effects on crime is yet available. Given the absence of such evidence of crime effects, policy makers interested in raise‐the‐age policies for their crime‐reduction benefits might consider focusing on other juvenile justice policy initiatives with demonstrated crime‐reduction benefits. Nevertheless, policy makers interested in these policies for other policy reasons can rest assured that there is no evidence that these policies exacerbate juvenile crime. The results of this study also suggest that the effects of “raise‐the‐age” policies on crime will be difficult to separate from recent declining trends in juvenile crime and arrests as well as from changes in police arrest decision making.

Raising the Age

“…Nonetheless, based on prior research as well as on Loeffler and Chalfin's () current study, it is reasonable to conclude that the minimum age of juvenile court jurisdiction should, at least, be 18 years of age. As such, states with lower age bounds (e.g., New York and North Carolina) should raise the age of juvenile court jurisdiction to at least 18 years of age.…”

“…The careful analyses presented by Loeffler and Chalfin (), which attempt to detangle changes in crime rates from changes in police behavior and to separate the effects of a policy change from other confounding factors, show no evidence of an increase, and dubious (if any) evidence of any decrease, in offending during the years immediately after Connecticut's increase of the age of legal majority from 16 to 17. But is it realistic to expect that both effects would be of similar, observable magnitude, if present?…”

“…It is important to put the findings from Loeffler and Chalfin () into context by summarizing scientific research that would lead us to expect a reduction in offending behaviors and increases in well‐being among juvenile‐ compared with adult‐processed offenders. Responding to juvenile crime in the same manner as adult crime can have significant repercussions on youth development in both the short term and the long term.…”

“…In the past decade, many states have begun to review their transfer policies, and several have enacted new policies to “raise the age” at which a juvenile can be tried as an adult in criminal court. Despite policies to raise the age of majority in Connecticut from 16 to 17 in 2010 and from 17 to 18 in 2012, Loeffler and Chalfin () found no measurable effect on state‐level crime rates, in either direction. Although it is reassuring that the change did not unleash a disastrous tsunami of 16‐year‐old crime, observers should be cautioned not to read too much into the study's inability to detect a hoped‐for reduction in crime as a result of reduced recidivism.…”

“…In 2012, Connecticut raised the age again to 18. The focus of the study by Charles Loeffler and Aaron Chalfin (, this issue) is whether the first change (in 2010) resulted in observable effects on crime and/or police behavior in the several years immediately after the change. The authors draw several conclusions: (a) No evidence of a rise in offending is observed; (b) although their analyses show a visually apparent reduction in property crime (see their Figure 3), this effect is argued to be small in comparison with the random fluctuations observed in comparison populations; and (c) there seems to have been an immediate but short‐lived effect on police behavior, with fewer 16‐year‐olds being arrested shortly after the policy change.…”