ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the third criterion relevant to transfer and reverse transfer decisions: sophistication-maturity. It reviews the empirical research that has examined this construct after describing the legal context for sophistication-maturity, with a particular emphasis on studies that have investigated correlates of sophistication-maturity and the predictive validity of the construct in the contexts of transfer and reverse transfer decisions. The chapter then describes various approaches for assessing sophistication-maturity, and concludes with a synthesis of the practice literature and a focus on best practice. The construct of sophistication-maturity is relevant in a number of legal contexts involving justice-involved adolescents, including adjudicative competence, waiver of Miranda rights, eyewitness testimony, and the treatment of detained youth with behavioral problems. Synthesizing the practice literature, Salekin (2015a) suggested that forensic mental health professionals use a test battery that includes intelligence tests, achievement tests, measures of child and adolescent psychopathology, strengths-based measures, and a measure that specifically assesses the psycho-legal construct of sophistication-maturity.
