Evaluating the Georgia Legislative Waiver's Effectiveness in Deterring Juvenile Crime

In an effort to curb the reported increases in violent juvenile crime, the growing trend of state legislatures is the removal of crimes specified as serious from the jurisdiction of the juvenile court. Having been legislatively waived, these offenses are placed within the jurisdiction of the superior court, and the offender, regardless of age, is tried as an adult. This investigation reports on the deterrent effect of the Georgia legislative waiver passed in 1994. A quasi-experimental cohort design is used in a comparison of the mean arrest rates for juveniles arrested for the specified crimes before and after the law's enactment. The analysis of the data suggests that there were no significant reductions in the mean arrest rates for the offenses specified by the law. Findings are consistent with studies that evaluated the legislative waiver in other states and suggest that the law does not reduce serious juvenile crime.