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Agenda

• Culpability and competency in juvenile justice policy
• What do we know about adolescent development that is relevant for thinking through policy related to culpability and competency?
  • Brain development research
  • Research on behavior and socio-emotional changes
• What do the findings reasonably suggest regarding policy for adolescents?

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Two Research Questions

• Culpability
  • Are there systematic differences between adolescents and adults in capabilities necessary to be held fully blameworthy for their offenses?
• Competence
  • Are there systematic differences between adolescents and adults in capabilities necessary for competence to be adjudicated in an adversarial context?

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Rethinking Old Questions

• Shall we have a juvenile justice system?
• If so, shall it have comparatively reduced sanctions?
• If it does, shall we nevertheless process some adolescents as adults?
• If so, how do we decide which ones? And...
• Should sentences in criminal court be the same for offenses committed as adolescents? (e.g., death penalty, LWOP)

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Studies of the MacArthur Research Network on Adolescent Development and Juvenile Justice

• Youths compared to adults in capacities to participate in their adjudication (completed)
• Youths compared to adults in capacities related to decision making in everyday life (in progress)

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What Might Make Adolescents Less than Fully Blameworthy?

If they are...

• Still learning to handle their impulses and regulate their emotions
• Still learning to foresee and consider long-term consequences and to delay short-term gratification
• More susceptible to peer influence and more dependent on peer approval than adults

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Relevant areas of research

• Brain development
• Cognitive development
• Socio-emotional development

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What Does Research Say About Adolescent Brain Development?

• MRI research: two distinct sets of brain systems relevant to adolescent behavior (reviewed later)
• Both continue to develop through adolescence because of continued....
  • Myelination (conductivity)
  • Pruning (efficiency)
• The two systems involve different regions of the brain and mature along different timetables

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Two brain areas still developing

• Socio-emotional system
  • mainly involves the limbic system and orbitofrontal areas of the frontal lobe, especially the ventromedial prefrontal cortex

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The Socio-Emotional System

• Responsible for processing emotions, social information, reward and punishment
  • Undergoes changes during early adolescence that are related to hormonal changes of puberty
• Those changes should result in early adolescent increases in....
  • sensation-seeking
  • emotional arousal
  • Seeking rewards
  • attentiveness to social information

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Two brain areas still developing

• Socio-emotional system
  • mainly involves the limbic system and orbitofrontal areas of the frontal lobe, especially the ventromedial prefrontal cortex
• Cognitive control system
  • mainly involves the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and the parietal lobe

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The Cognitive Control System

• Responsible for deliberative thinking - weighing costs and benefits, thinking ahead, regulating impulses (often called "executive functions")
• Brain changes are gradual from preadolescence on, well into the mid-20s
• Increased maturation should result in more/better....
  • impulse control
  • emotion regulation
  • foresight
  • planning ahead
  • reasoning

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So, what does the MRI research suggest?

• Adolescence is a time when socio-emotional system is easily aroused and highly sensitive to social feedback
• Adolescence is a time characterized by a still-immature cognitive control system
• Adolescence is a time of still-maturing connections between socio-emotional and cognitive control systems
• As a result, adolescents might be expected to be...
• Less able to control impulses
• Less likely to think ahead
• More driven by the thrill of rewards
• Less able to resist pressure from peers

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Under the law, immaturity in these capacities might mitigate culpability and increase risks of incompetence to make decisions as defendants

• Self-control
• Impulsivity
• Excessive sensation-seeking
• Short-sightedness
• Failure to think ahead
• Orientation toward immediate gratification
• Susceptibility to Influence of Others

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What's the evidence?

MacArthur Juvenile Culpability Study

• Are adolescents less mature than adults in ways specifically relevant to culpability? (i.e., self-control, foresight, resistance to social influence)
• Studied over 900 individuals from ages 10 to 30
• Performance and self-report measures of planning, preference for immediate gratification, impulsivity, risk processing, sensation-seeking, susceptibility to peer pressure
• At what age do individuals demonstrate adult levels of maturity?

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Self-Control

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Impulsivity

Sample Items from Barratt Impulsivity Subscales

• Motor Impulsivity
  • "I do things without thinking."
• Lacks Delay of Gratification
  • "I make up my mind quickly."
• Lacks Perseverance
  • "I change my mind about what I like to do."

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Sensation Seeking

Sample items from Zuckerman Sensation-Seeking Scale

• "I sometimes like to do things that are a little frightening."
• "I sometimes do 'crazy' things just for fun."

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Thinking about Risks

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Short Sightedness

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Future Orientation

Anticipates Consequences

Some people like to think about all of the possible good and bad things that can happen before making a decision

BUT

Other people don't think it's necessary to think about every little possibility before making a decision.

Planning

Some people like to plan things out one step at a time.

BUT

Other people like to jump right into things without planning them out beforehand.

Thinks About the Future

Some people take life one day at a time without worrying about the future.

BUT

Other people are always thinking about what tomorrow will bring.

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Susceptibility to Peer Pressure

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Resistance to Peer Influence

• For some people, it's pretty easy for their friends to get them to change their mind.
• Some people think it's better to be an individual even if people will be angry at you for going against the crowd.
• For other people, it's pretty hard for their friends to get them to change their mind.
• Other people think it's better to go along with the crowd than to make people angry at you.

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Summing Up: Adolescents tend to be...

• Less able to control impulses and more driven by the thrill of rewards
• More short-sighted and oriented to immediate gratification
• Less able to resist pressure from peers

Psychosocial maturity continues to develop into early adulthood, long after adolescents have become as "smart" as adults

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Summing up...

• Results of this behavioral research are consistent with brain development research
• Next step: Are the abilities this study measured directly related to areas of brain still developing in adolescence? (Not yet known)

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What are the implications of the research for juvenile justice policy and practice?

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Implications for Policy Regarding Culpability

• Findings provide strong case for mitigation based on immaturity
• How could mitigation due to immaturity be handled in law, policy and legal practice?
• Individualized assessment
  • But measures don't yet exist
• Categorical, age-based line drawing
  • But at what line, given that different abilities mature at different times?
  • And given wide variations in abilities among youths at a given age?

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Implications for Competency

• Many of the developing cognitive and socio-emotional abilities are relevant for assisting counsel and making plea decisions
• Results are consistent with MacArthur Juvenile Competence Study: Risk of poor understanding and reasoning about trials greater at age 15 and below