When young offenders commit serious or violent offenses, should the justice system respond on the basis of" just deserts" or on the" real needs" of the offender? Waiver decisions-affecting the most serious or persistent juvenile offenders-require a sentencing policy choice between punishment in adult criminal court or rehabilitation in juvenile court.'If one adopts a criminal court's point of view, the emphasis on punishment prevails, and the seriousness of the present offense or one's prior record controls the decision to transfer adolescents from juvenile to adult court. When offense considerations dominate, transfer decisions lend themselves to relatively mechanical decisional rules or presumptive sentencing guidelines. Alternatively, if one adopts ajuvenile court's point of view, the emphasis on rehabilitation predominates, and individualized assessments of an offender's" amenability to treatment,"" dangerousness," and future welfare control the sentencing decision. When offender characteristics are paramount, courts require more open-ended, indeterminate, and discretionary processes. 2