INITIAL DEVELOPMENT OF A PSYCHOLOGICAL MODEL FOR JUDICIAL DECISION MAKING IN CONTINUING RESTRAINING ORDERS

Probate and family court judges are increasingly called upon to make rapid decisions regarding the continuance of restraining orders. These decisions are often made without the benefit of adequate background information or an awareness of which psychological and behavioral factors are most relevant. This action‐oriented research project develops a model that brings psychosocial factors to consideration for judges making decisions regarding the continuance of restraining orders. While further evaluation of the model is needed, the project's unique methodology highlights the value of interdisciplinary collaboration, multiple methods of inquiry, and the consideration of real‐world needs and constraints in developing decision‐making tools.     

REFLECTIONS ON THE STATE OF CONSENSUS-BASED DECISION MAKING IN CHILD WELFARE

Consensus approaches to child protection decision making such as mediation and family group conferencing have become increasingly widespread since first initiated about 25 years ago. They address but are also constrained by paradoxes in the child protection system about commitments to protecting children and to family autonomy. In a series of surveys, interviews, and dialogues, mediation and conferencing researchers and practitioners discussed the key issues that face their work: clarity about purpose, system support, family empowerment, professional qualifications, and coordination among different types of consensus-building efforts. Consensus-based decision making in child protection will continue to expand and grow but will also continue to confront these challenges.     

VIOLENCE AND COMMITMENT IN CUSTODIAL SETTINGS

Questionnaires were distributed to the inmates and staff of four custodial settings: (1) a men's prison; (2)a women's prison; (3) a boarding school for troubled and troublesome juveniles; and (4) a drug rehabilitation halfway house (staff not questioned). The hypothesis of the study was that violence would be inversely related to commitment (defined as involvement with the organization and organizational cohesion). Using attitudinal measures of commitment and a self-report. Guttman scale of violence, the results of the study indicated the following: (1) violence was significantly inversely related to both organizational involvement and cohesion among some custodial inmates and (2) violence was slightly positively correlated with involvement and cohesion among some custodial staff. The relationship persisted among inmates even with the introduction of age and education as control variables. The use of these controls only slightly modified the relationship among custodial staff:     

FAMILY DEFINITIONS AND CHILDREN'S RIGHTS IN CUSTODY DECISION MAKING: THE IMPORTANCE OF A CHANGING LITIGANT CONTEXT

Recent scholarship has advocated two distinct approaches to promoting the preservation of children's attachment relationships during custody disputes between their biological and nonbiological parents. Some scholars argue that legal recognition of expansive definitions of the family is the key to protecting children's attachments, while others argue that such protection is contingent upon legal recognition of children's rights. This research examines the efficacy of these competing arguments through an analysis of 75 cases decided in 21 states and the District of Columbia between 2004 and 2005. Findings suggest that judicial attention to definitions of the family is generally confined to cases involving specific types of litigants; namely, former homosexual partners, couples who utilized fertility technologies, former stepparents, and presumptive fathers. In these instances, attention to broad conceptions of the family is associated with the maintenance of children's attachment relationships. Beyond this particular context, however, judges focus almost exclusively on balancing children's interests and rights against those of their biological parents. These findings suggest that both children's rights and family definitions influence judicial decisions, but their impact is context specific. For those scholars advocating legal change, this is an important insight because it shifts the debate from an “either/or” focus to one that recognizes the importance of the litigant context in custody decision making.     

LIFE STORIES, DOCTRINES, AND DECISION MAKING

This article explores three supreme court appellate cases where one parent moves away with the children. These decisions from New York, Canada, and California reached very different conclusions.     

“YOUTH IS ENMESHED IN A HIGHLY DYSFUNCTIONAL FAMILY SYSTEM”: EXPLORING THE RELATIONSHIP AMONG DYSFUNCTIONAL FAMILIES,PARENTAL INCARCERATION,AND JUVENILE COURT DECISION MAKING*

Although prior work has substantiated the role of external attributes in juvenile court decision making, no study to date has examined how family situational factors as well as maternal and paternal incarceration affect juvenile court officials' responses to troubled youth. Using quantitative and qualitative juvenile court data from a large urban county in the southwest, this study draws on attribution theory to examine how family structure, perceptions of family dysfunction, and parental incarceration influence out‐of‐home placement decisions. Findings reveal that juvenile court officials' perceptions of good and bad families inform their decision making. This study emphasizes the need to unravel the intricate effects of maternal and paternal incarceration and officials' attributions about families and family structure on juvenile court decision making.     

DEVELOPING A UNIFIED FAMILY COURT IN ONTARIO

In Ontario, the Family Courts is a branch of the Superior Court of Justice. The author outlines the Canadian concept of a unified family court and the constitutional problems pecular to its initial establishment in Ontario in 1977, as well as its limited expansion in 1995. The courts is now on the verge of another expansion, which will be quite considerable. Also discussed is the need, in a unified family court, for a judiciary that specializes in family law cases, mediation teams and family law information centers in each court site, and most importantly, liaison and resource committees to support the work of the court.     

ON AMBIGUITY IN PERCEPTIONS OF RISK:IMPLICATIONS FOR CRIMINAL DECISION MAKING AND DETERRENCE*

Deterrence theorists and researchers have argued that the critical dimension of sanction certainty is its level—increasing the certainty of punishment from a lower to a higher level will inhibit criminal conduct. However, the true certainty of punishment is rarely known with much precision. Both Sherman (1990) and Nagin (1998) have suggested that ambiguity about the level of punishment certainty is itself consequential in the decision to commit or refrain from crime. Here, we investigate this proposition. We find some evidence that individuals are “ambiguity averse” for decisions involving losses such as criminal punishments. This finding means that a more ambiguous perceived certainty of punishment is a greater deterrent of some crimes than a nominally equivalent but less ambiguous one. However, this effect depends on how large an individual's risk certainty perception is initially. That is, we find evidence for “boundary effects” (Casey and Scholz, 1991a, 1991b) in which this effect holds for lower probabilities but reverses for higher ones. For higher detection probabilities, individuals become “ambiguity seeking” such that a less ambiguous detection probability has more deterrent value than a nominally equivalent but more ambiguous detection probability. Results are presented from two distinct, but complementary, analysis samples and empirical approaches. These samples include a survey to college students with several hypothetical choice problems and data from the Pathways to Desistance study, a longitudinal investigation of serious adolescent offenders transitioning from adolescence to young adulthood.     

CRIMINALITY, PROSECUTORIAL SCREENING, AND UNCERTAINTY: TOWARD A THEORY OF DISCRETIONARY DECISION MAKING IN FELONY CASE PROCESSINGS

This research contributes to a further understanding of the process of criminalization by examining case information that affects prosecuting attorneys' decision to continue felony prosecution following grand jury indictment. It is suggested that prosecuting attorneys, like other decision makers in organizations engaged in people-processing activities, are confronted with uncertainty emerging from an inability to unilaterally exercise control over all actors involved in the transformation process. By relying on a self-imposed decision criteria of prosecutorial merit defined as the likelihood of obtaining a jury trial conviction, prosecutors attempt to impose a "bounded rationality" on the exercise of discretion in screening decision making. This rationality is one that is sensitive to concerns for effective management of victims and witnesses. It is argued that information relevant to victim/witness credibility and/or cooperation in prosecution is brought to bear in deciding prosecutorial strategies of case processing. Therefore, it is hypothesized that, controlling for legal and extralegal variables, case information that decreases uncertainty concerning victim/witness management will increase the probability of continued prosecution. Support is found for this uncertainty avoidance thesis. In addition, the data indicate that prosecuting attorneys are less likely to continue prosecution of cases involving female defendants and are more likely to continue prosecution of defendants whose bail outcome includes financial conditions for release.     

THEORIZING SANCTIONING IN A CRIMINALIZED JUVENILE COURT*

Recent juvenile justice reforms have produced increasingly complex and criminal‐like approaches to sanctioning youths, yet research to date has not examined the full range of newly available sentencing options nor systematically drawn on theories of adult sentencing. The present study addresses these issues by developing competing hypotheses about the effects of legal, extralegal, and processing factors, as well as sentencing options, in a highly proceduralized and criminalized juvenile court in Texas. These hypotheses are then tested using quantitative and qualitative data. The results are largely consistent with derived expectations and do not support arguments that increased proceduralization and criminalization of juvenile courts will eliminate consideration of age, gender, or race/ethnicity in sentencing decisions.