Despite the intent of juvenile sentence reforms to create sanctions that approximate
punishments imposed by the criminal court, evaluations of the new laws indicate what
appears to be the continued lenient treatment of juveniles. One explanation for this
phenomenon is that within similar charges, juvenile offenses are far less serious than adult
offenses. In order to explore this idea, prosecutors of one New Jersey county were asked to
rate the seriousness of the behaviors of 500 adults and 500 juveniles charged with assault or
robbery. With respect to both offenses, the behaviors of juveniles were regarded as
substantially less serious than the behaviors of adults. These results highlight a need for the
use of more precise measures of offense seriousness in juvenile justice research.
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