ABSTRACT
The past decade noticed marked advances in theoretical and scientific work on the topic of juvenile transfer to adult criminal courts. Melton, Petrila, Poythress, and Slobogin (1987/1997) generated one of the first chapters to discuss juvenile transfer evaluations and provided specific information on how psychologists might address the amenability to treatment question. Ewing (1990) wrote one of the first journal articles on juvenile transfer evaluations and discussed specific ways in which psychologists could address the questions of dangerousness, sophistication-maturity, and amenability-constructs widely accepted to be relevant in the transfer decision. Ewing noted that psychologists, because of their clinical training might be in a particularly good position to address questions of maturity. Later, Kruh and Brodsky (1997) wrote a scholarly article on transfer to adult courts and outlined ways in which youth might be assessed on the constructs of dangerousness, maturity, and amenability to treatment. At the time, they argued that clinicians might be in a better position to address questions of maturity, but also provided suggestions for ways in which amenability and dangerousness could be assessed. Their paper also pointed to future research that was needed if transfer evaluations were to be conducted in a sound manner. That same year, Witt and Dyer (1997) provided information for how clinicians might conduct scientifically grounded waiver of jurisdiction evaluations. Grisso (1998, 2000) also provided information on how to conduct forensic evaluation of youth facing transfer and provided a specific structure for the evaluation. His work suggested that clinicians should focus on family, peers, community, academic and vocational skills, and personality functioning. Salekin (e.g., Salekin, Yff, Neumann, Leistico, & Zalot, 2002) provided empirical data on the core criteria that underpin the Kent constructs of dangerousness, sophistication-maturity, and amenability to treatment and also highlighted in a series of articles (2002ab; Salekin, Rogers, & Ustad, 2001) ways in which transfer cases might be addressed. Finally, Witt (2003) provided an illustrative case example of a transfer evaluation highlighting how the evaluation could be conducted and interpreted.
