ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the legal questions of transfer and reverse transfer. The discussion includes the origins of the criteria for transfer and a review of the mechanisms for these actions, which develop the context in which a juvenile forensic mental health assessment is needed. It continues with a review of the underlying models for such evaluations. In the domains of authority cited throughout this book, law, science, ethics, and practice, there are a number of specific influences on the evaluation of transfer and reverse transfer. The Model Juvenile Court Act 2016, originally promulgated by the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws in 1968, offers several criteria for juvenile transfer that may influence existing transfer mechanisms across the US. Reverse transfer is the procedure that allows a youth who has been transferred from juvenile to criminal court via one of the mechanisms described to appeal this decision and possibly have it reversed.
