What Is Emerging Adult Justice?
Emerging adult justice focuses on achieving positive outcomes for people ages 18 to 25 involved in the criminal justice system. Why focus on this age range? Nationally, people ages 18 to 25 are overrepresented throughout the criminal legal system and have the highest recidivism rates. Too often, the justice system fails to recognize or meet the developmental needs of this population and treats emerging adults in almost the same manner as older, fully mature adults.
The age of jurisdiction between the juvenile and adult systems has differed among states over the years, but the vast majority now set it at age 18. While age 18 was once understood to signify developmental maturity, recent research suggests that brain development continues well into our 20s and that developmental milestones associated with independent, mature adulthood occur well past the 18th birthday for younger generations.
18- to 25-Year-Olds Have Distinct Developmental Needs
The term “emerging adulthood” was first introduced in 2000 by psychologist Jeffrey Jensen Arnett, who recognized a critical developmental period between adolescence and adulthood. Some institutions, such as the American Academy of Pediatrics, have concurred that there is no set demarcation line for the end of adolescence. There is an extensive body of research on adolescent brain development, a period neurologically defined as beginning at the start of puberty and extending through the mid-20s.
Young people are malleable during this stage of life and undergo significant cognitive and social changes as they mature. To experience healthy, normative development, emerging adults need opportunities to explore and learn, with consistent, caring adults to support them. Most youth will desist or “age out” of crime by their mid-20s because they outgrow behavior that puts them at high risk for exposure to the justice system, such as high susceptibility to peer influence.
Notably, although emerging adults make up approximately 10% of the U.S. population, they account for 19% of admissions into adult prisons nationally. They number approximately 300,000 based on estimates by the Columbia University Justice Lab using multiple sources in 2019. That year, Black and Latino 18- and 19-year-old males were 12 times and three times more likely to be imprisoned than their white peers, respectively. For Black males ages 20 to 24, the incarceration rate was eight times greater than for white males of the same age, while Latino males were three times more likely to be incarcerated than their white peers.
“Recorded differences in behavior by groups of youth does not explain these troubling disparities,” says Lael Chester, director of the Emerging Adult Justice Project at Columbia University’s Justice Lab and co-author of Emerging Adult Justice. “We need to examine the justice system itself and how it responds to different youth, living in different neighborhoods, with different economic and social opportunities and resources.”
Underserved by the Adult Justice System
Prison environments often cause trauma and function as barriers to the critical relationships and experiences emerging adults need to mature. The lack of developmentally oriented practices and programming is particularly acute for emerging adults who lacked connections to family, school and community at earlier stages of their lives and/or experienced trauma. A significant number of emerging adults reported abuse at the hands of state systems. Among those who were removed from the home in childhood, 39% experienced violence and 28% experienced abuse or neglect in the residential and/or carceral settings in which they were placed.
“The gradual developmental transition from childhood to adulthood makes emerging adults more vulnerable to and less culpable for criminal behavior,” writes Chester. “But it also makes them more amenable to positive influence, intervention and rehabilitation.”
Reforms Focused on Emerging Adults in Justice Systems
Reforms focused on this age group are gaining momentum nationwide. Notably, the Annie E. Casey Foundation has awarded grants to three jurisdictions — Massachusetts, Nebraska and Washington, D.C. — to help test and refine a developmental framework. This set of principles focuses specifically on achieving positive outcomes for people ages 18 to 25 involved in the criminal justice system. It includes shifts to practices and/or policies in the following areas:
- Healthy development: Guide emerging adults to make amends to the people they have harmed and contribute with civic engagement and volunteering.
- Basic needs: Assist emerging adults in accessing health care, food security, housing and other necessities that support stability.
- Helpful policies and practices: Train public defenders to represent their clients in ways that recognize and support this distinct developmental stage;
- Harm reduction: Stop harmful practices, such as limited family contact and solitary confinement.
- Fewer barriers to success: Eliminate the imposition of fines and fees in courts and probation.
Read more about the jurisdictions testing the justice framework for young adults
