Author ORCID Identifier

Armstrong - https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6003-0031

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

10-11-2011

Publication Title

Crime & Delinquency

Volume

57

Issue

6

First Page

827

Last Page

848

Abstract

The presence of counsel for juveniles in the courtroom seems advantageous from a due process perspective, yet some studies suggest that juveniles receive harsher dispositions when represented by an attorney. This study tested whether a “counsel penalty” existed regardless of attorney type and, guided by prior sentencing literature, used a more comprehensive model to determine the influence of extralegal and contextual factors that may amplify the counsel penalty. Utilizing official data from a Northeastern state in a multilevel modeling strategy, this study found that regardless of the type of counsel retained, harsher sentences were received as compared with cases in which a juvenile was not represented by counsel even after controlling for offense type. Moreover, minority youth with public defenders and males with private counsel received harsher sentences while community characteristics did not appear to have a significant influence on sentencing decisions.

Comments

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Sage in Crime and Delinquency on October 11, 2011, available online:https://doi.org/10.1177/0011128711420101

Reuse restricted to noncommercial and no derivative uses.

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