Transferred juvenile delinquents and their judicial trajectories into adulthood.

In Belgium juvenile offenders under the age of 18 usually appear in the Youth Court. By exception, however, the juvenile can be tried according to the rules of penal law, either in Criminal Court or in the 'Extended Youth Court'. This mechanism is called 'transfer', 'waiver' or 'referral'. Several studies in the USA demonstrated that transferred offenders are more likely to recidivate, and at a higher rate, and more likely to be rearrested for more serious offences than juveniles retained in the juvenile justice system.
Previous Belgian research showed that within a follow-up period of 4 to 6 years, at least half of the transferred youngsters relapsed into crime. In order to gain insight in the question whether these high recidivism rates are caused by intrinsic characteristics of the population, and/or by the impact of the transfer decision, a follow-up research is conducted. In this contribution results there will be elaborated about the judicial trajectory of these juveniles transferred to adult court 10 years ago. An analysis of their detention files and criminal records will be presented.