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The Predisposition Report, Decision‐Making, and Juvenile Court Policy
Author(s) -
Rogers Joseph W.,
Williams James D.
Publication year - 1994
Publication title -
juvenile and family court journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.155
H-Index - 19
eISSN - 1755-6988
pISSN - 0161-7109
DOI - 10.1111/j.1755-6988.1994.tb00812.x
Subject(s) - pace , juvenile court , juvenile , centennial , juvenile delinquency , economic justice , psychology , resource (disambiguation) , task (project management) , sample (material) , political science , criminology , applied psychology , law , medicine , management , computer science , geography , economics , computer network , chemistry , geodesy , pathology , chromatography , biology , genetics
With the 1999 approach of the juvenile court's first centennial in this country, it behooves us to pick up the pace of policy reformulation for the entire juvenile justice system. Given the enormity of that task, it would be wise to encourage researchers to begin building a larger, empirical data base to enhance this reformulation. This study contributes to that task by focusing on a key major component, the decision‐making process involving factors leading to institutional placement. Over seventy indicators drawn from the case histories of 162 male delinquents were examined. One half of these youths had been sent to a state training school; the other half consisted of a randomly matched sample of noninstitutionalized court referrals. A set of indicators which add insight into this crucial decision and which show promise for increasing court effectiveness is identified. Among other recommendations, the authors advocate reexamining an under‐used resource – the mounds of closed juvenile cases, including the predisposition reports, subsequent developments, and outcomes.