Political orientation and perceptions of adolescent autonomy and judicial culpability

This study probed general attitudes about processing youths in adult criminal court across a range of offenses, explored attitudes about age of autonomous decision‐making for several activities outside the criminal justice context, and examined the interaction between these two realms. The major finding was that adults favor adult punishment of adolescent offenders at younger ages than they favor autonomy in other decision‐making contexts; the gap is widest for those who identify themselves as conservatives. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.