Spare the Needle but Not the Punishment: The Incarceration of Waived Youth in Texas Prisons

The primary purpose of judicial waiver is to impose more severe sanctions on offenders than are available in juvenile court. This article explores two dimensions of sanction severity, sentence length and actual time served, to determine if juveniles waived to adult court do receive more severe sanctions. Data were collected on all youth waived to adult court from 1981-1993 and sentenced to prison (n = 946). Juveniles in this population consistently received longer sentences than are available in juvenile court. When actual time served was taken into consideration, however, these youth rarely served more lengthy sentences than are available in juvenile court, serving an average of only 27% of their original sentence.