Adolescent Development in New York Juvenile Forensic Evaluations: Where the Science Helps and Where It Overreaches

Stephan M. Carlson, MD, MBA, FAPA · Juvenile and Family Forensics

Developmental neuroscience explains why adolescents, as a group, take more risks and are more reshaped by treatment than adults. It does not tell the court what a particular sixteen-year-old understood, intended, or is capable of becoming. The strongest juvenile opinions hold that line; the weakest let a population finding stand in for an individual one. What the New York statutes actually ask A juvenile forensic opinion in New York answers to a specific procedural setting, and the setting defines the question. In Family Court, a "juvenile delinquent" is a person at least twelve and less than eighteen who commits an act that would be a crime if done by an adult, with a narrow exception reach

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