MODELING COURT DELAY

Quantitative modeling using operations research and related techniques has much less promise for mitigating court delay than proponents anticipate. Results to date have been discouraging, largely because trial court process is exceptionally difficult to model. There is no consistent sequence or path, and critical discretionary decisions are made by professionals based on individualized criteria that are hard to code. Also, participants (litigants and lawyers) are not part of the organization in any normal sense: Their very purpose is conflict, and they are as likely to try to subvert the court operation as support it. Manipulating court incentive structures is a more promising management approach.     

DEPENDENCY COURT MEDIATION

This article discusses the roles and levels of participation of the various participants in juvenile and dependency court mediation, and also examines potential gains and losses associated with participation for family members and the social worker.     

ROMANCING THE COURT

Problem‐solving courts, created at the end of the twentieth century, make court‐based solutions central to addressing significant societal problems, such as substance abuse and its impact on criminal activity and family functioning. Yet, lessons gleaned from over 100 years of family court history suggest that court‐based solutions to intractable social problems have rarely been effective. This article asks three questions of the problem‐solving court movement: What problem are we trying to solve? Is the court the best place to solve the problem? What are the consequences of giving authority to a court for solving the problem? Answering those questions through the lens of specific examples from family court—the original problem‐solving court—leads to the conclusion that neither the structural issues that courts face, such as overwhelming numbers of cases, nor the momentous societal issues that problem‐solving courts have recently begun to shoulder can be adequately addressed through court‐based solutions. The factors that allegedly distinguish new problem‐solving courts from earlier exemplars, especially the family court, are both less unique and less successful than they have been portrayed by problem‐solving court enthusiasts. These factors alone fail to justify the expansion of problem‐solving courts without further evidence of their effectiveness. Moreover, the potential dangers inherent in problem‐solving courts are not theoretical. By examining illustrative examples from the history of the family court, the dangers become clearly apparent.     

THE FUTURE COURT

This article sets forth the author's vision of a true family court. It examines some of the liabilities inherent in an adversary system and proposes a problem-solving approach.     

MEDIATION IN THE LOS ANGELES COUNTY SUPERIOR COURT JUVENILE DEPENDENCY COURT

This article presents the results of a 9-month interdisciplinary task force convened to review the mediation process in the juvenile dependency court and to develop guidelines for its operation by the conciliation court, stemming from a grand jury recommendation.     

JUVENILE COURT DISPOSITIONS:

The research question precipitated by the concern for “just sanctions” and effective treatment for future juvenile programs is: What have been the criterion used by juvenile court decision makers in disposition sentencing. Disposition is analyzed for both nonstatus and status offense groups. The method of analysis is a stepwise discriminant function. The findings indicate the importance of legalistic variables and a social class bias in the dispositions of both offense groups. The social class bias is much stronger in the case of status offenders and increases at subsequent court disposition levels. These data support the labeling-conflict contention of class bias in the application of sanctions and suggest a policy directive for future delinquency prevention programs.     

MEDIATION AND THE DEPENDENCY COURT

This study examines mediation in three dependency courts in the United States and identifies major policy questions regarding the use of mediation in these proceedings.     

SPECIALIZATION IN JUVENILE COURT CAREERS

The study of specialization in offending careers is relevant to the key theoretical issue of whether different types of offending reject only one underlying theoretical construct (such as delinquent tendency) or several different constructs. This research improves on previous studies of specialization in offending careers in three ways: (1) It is based on the complete juvenile court careers of a very large sample of offenders (nearly 70,000). (2) It uses a fine-grained classification of 21 offense types. (3) It uses a new measure of the strength of specialization, the Forward Specialization Coefficient (FSC). Both transition matrices and offending careers are studied.
The major findings from the transition matrices are (1) there was a small but significant degree of specialization in offending superimposed on a great deal of versatility: (2) the degree of specialization tended to increase with successive referrals, and this was not due to more versatile offenders dropping out: and (3) the relative extent to which offenders specialized in different offenses held for two jurisdictions (Maricopa County, Arizona, and Utah), both sexes, and all ages.
The analyses of offending careers showed that the most specialized offenses were runaway, burglary, motor vehicle theft, liquor violations, incorrigibility, curfew, truancy, and drugs. Nearly 20 percent of the offenders were identified as specialists. The conclusion is that, while offending was versatile to a first approximation, delinquency theories should attempt to explain specialization and specialists in order to yield more accurate quantitative predictions about offending careers.     

NEGLECTED INFANTS IN FAMILY COURT

This paper applies the science of early childhood development to the question of neglect in infancy to offer best practice guidance to family law and child protection professionals charged with acting in their best interest. The paper discusses the challenges of presenting cases of infant neglect, particularly emotional neglect, to the court. Current science on the implications of neglect for brain development, and long term mental health are discussed. Recommendations for assessment, intervention and questions that should be addressed in court deliberations are outlined.     

SUBSTANCE-ABUSING FATHERS IN FAMILY COURT

Although all forms of substance abuse disproportionately affect men during early to middle adulthood, when many are fathering children, the status of substance-abusing men as parents is largely ignored in public policy, service delivery, and research exploring the consequences of chronic drug and alcohol abuse. In this review, the authors highlight issues of potential concern to professionals working with this poorly understood, negatively stereotyped population of fathers in family court settings. After reviewing the existing literature on substance-abusing fathers and their children, the authors challenge family court personnel to use (a) awareness of stereotyping, (b) clinical assessment, (c) the principles of therapeutic jurisprudence, and (d) treatment resources to minimize, as much as possible, the risk for poor developmental outcomes incurred by children with a substance-abusing father.