Procedural justice at German courts as seen by defendants and juvenile prisoners

The article summarizes German research on procedural and distributive justice at criminal courts. The first German field studies addressing these topics are presented. Procedural justice characteristics like neutrality, courtesy, equal consideration of evidence, voice, and fairness of procedural rules are relevant for Germans. A study on juvenile prisoners shows no support for equity theory and some for the Group Value model. Lay assessors receive positive evaluations by juvenile prisoners.     

Improving juvenile dependency courts:Twenty-Three Steps

New federal support for improvement in the handling of child welfare cases has made it possible for juvenile and family court judges to assess how well courts are implementing the Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980. This article first describes the purposes of the Act, and then suggest 23 steps to consider in attempts to improve the court process.     

Mental health courts: serving justice and promoting recovery

This article begins and ends with a call for more empirical research to understand the connection between societal views of mental illness and the legal system. The author asserts that changing social perceptions of mental illness certainly affect legal outcomes and commitment levels, but the degree remains unknown. This article explores the above two topics through the framework of the Circuit Court 'split' regarding the Constitutional rights of persons committed to state mental health institutions. A main facet of the 'split' is centered on the Circuits' disagreement about whether or not all mentally ill patients committed to institutions deserve the same Constitutional protections.     

The effectiveness of public defenders in four Florida counties

Purpose

The present study utilizes data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics to examine the effectiveness of public defenders in Florida to assess whether the case outcomes of defendants with public defenders are similar to the case outcomes of defendants with retained attorneys, controlling for legally-relevant variables.

Methods

The present study utilizes both logistic and OLS regression analysis to examine differences between attorneys for seven different case outcomes.

Results

Results indicate that defendants with public defenders are more likely to be detained pretrial, more likely to be convicted, and less likely to have their cases dismissed. The results dispute previous research which found few, if any, differences between public defenders and retained counsel.

Conclusion

Results suggest that, at least in the counties examined, defendants with public defenders suffer from a lack of quality counsel.     

Orientations to juvenile justice: Exploratory notes from a statewide survey of juvenile justice decisionmakers

This study examined the extent to which orientations to juvenile justice held by decisionmakers are related to their functional roles and educational backgrounds. Predictions concerning this question were drawn from both the literature on complex organizations and writings by scholars interpreting and forecasting the future of juvenile justice.The findings indicate that assignment to specific roles in the juvenile justice system is a significant predictor of commitment to either a rehabilitative or a just deserts model of juvenile justice. This effect appears to be modified to some extent by educational backgrounds and professional identifications. The implications of these findings for a continuation of the traditional rehabilitative ideal in juvenile justice are discussed.     

Developmental incompetence to stand trial in juvenile courts

Juveniles' competency to participate in delinquency proceedings has received increased attention in recent years. Developmental incompetence, whereby juveniles' incompetency is based upon their immaturity, as opposed to a mental disorder or developmental disability, is an evolving and important aspect of this area of law. The following paper reviews theories used to support the notion of developmental incompetence, as well as the extant empirical research on juveniles' competency-related abilities. Using a LexisNexis search, statutory and case laws pertaining to juvenile competency were identified across the 50 states and the District of Columbia. Only six states clearly allow developmental incompetence, whereas 17 have laws that do not include developmental immaturity as an acceptable basis of incompetence in juvenile courts. Developmental incompetence is likely to affect a relatively small proportion of juvenile cases, but has important implications for juvenile forensic practice. Recommendations are offered for forensic practitioners conducting this type of evaluation.     

Analytic methods for examining race and ethnic disparity in the juvenile courts

Prior studies of juvenile court decision making and racial disparity are often criticized for their lack of methodological rigor. These studies are criticized for focusing their analyses on separate decision-making stages and not taking into account issues that are related to sample selection. This research attempted to address these issues through an analysis of juvenile court case records from the state of Hawaii. Different limited dependent variable models were used to estimate ethnic disparity in juvenile court outcomes. Comparisons of models according to the Bayesian Information Criteria (BICs) are used to assess the overall fit of these models. The findings indicate few substantive differences across models and a general leniency of the court in favor of White youth. The findings do reveal that there are differences in the accuracy with which these models predicted juvenile court outcomes. The usefulness of this method of model comparison for disparity research is discussed.     

Feminized justice: The impact of women decision makers in the lower courts in Australia

We examine the impact of an Australian state government's decision to appoint a considerable number of women to its previously all-male Magistrates' Courts. Interviews with a sample of 30 male and female magnistrates revealed ready acceptance of this major change, probably because of organizational peculiarities of the jurisdiction. The advent of women as judicial decision makers was perceived to have improved the work environment of the courts. Comparison of the ways in which male and female magistrates perceive aspects of their job (e.g., judicial role, adjudication, sentencing, and the conduct of informal proceedings) suggests that most of the apparent gender differences are more likely the product of age and background than evidence of justice “in a different voice.” Changes in court ideology suggest that the appointment of women may have been used to further more general political objectives. A critical question for feminist research might be: When and why do conservative institutions adopt strategies that apparently promote women's interests?     

The lay component in Scottish juvenile justice

A recently completed study of the Scottish juvenile justice system, employing a variety of methodological approaches, is used as a source of information on the behavior and attitudes of the lay volunteers who make up children's panels and are responsible for decisions concerning young people who are alleged to have committed an offense or are believed to be in need of care and protection. The reported data relate to the beliefs of panel members as to the causes of delinquency and the objectives of intervention and alternative disposals; the topics they raise for discussion in children's hearings and the factors which influence the decisions they make; and the manner in which they are perceived by the children and parents who have appeared before them.     

Youth justice conferencing and indigenous over-representation in the Queensland juvenile justice system: a micro-simulation case study

Restorative justice conferencing for young offenders is firmly established in Australian juvenile justice, and legislated conferencing schemes are operating in all Australian states and territories. While there is some variation in the terms used to describe restorative justice conferences (e.g., family group conferencing, family conferencing, or youth justice conferencing), there is much more consistency in how the conferencing process is managed across Australian jurisdictions. In Queensland youth justice conferencing is a process that brings together an offender, the victim and their supporters to discuss the harm caused by the offending behaviour and provide the young person with an opportunity to take responsibility for his or her behaviour and make amends. This paper begins by briefly sketching the development of restorative justice conferencing in Queensland and describes the Juvenile Justice Simulation Model (JJSM), a micro-simulation model developed for criminal justice policy analysis in Queensland, Australia. We use this micro-simulation model to conduct an experimental exploration of the effects that youth justice conferencing has on system-wide outcomes for indigenous young people. The model simulates the impact of interventions up until 2011 on the number of finalised youth justice court appearances. Our results indicate that youth justice conferencing is unlikely to reduce the over-representation of indigenous young people in the juvenile justice system. The simulations demonstrated that, by the 2011, youth justice conferencing would result in a 12.5% decrease in finalised court appearances. Unfortunately, this decrease was more apparent for non-indigenous young people (13.7% decrease in court appearances) than for indigenous young people, who had a 10.5% decrease in court appearances. This differential impact of conferencing is due to the different court appearance profiles between indigenous and non-indigenous young offenders, with indigenous young people initiating offending at an earlier age and offending more frequently than non-indigenous young offenders.     

Of public interest: How courts handle rape victims' privacy suits

In spite of a string of unfavorable court decisions, rape victims continue to bring privacy suits against news organizations that identify the victims. Based on case history, journalists have little to fear from such privacy suits because appellate courts usually find victims' names add credibility to stories and, therefore, are of public interest. Most judges seem to believe that they cannot logically rule a basic fact, such as a name, to be private in one set of circumstances and not in others. A ruling in rape victims' favor may create a slippery slope that erodes the press' First Amendment freedoms. However, the courts' limited opinions provide victims with the possibility that in some circumstance a court may rule against the press on this issue. From a journalist's perspective, a broader ruling is needed to discourage rape victims from bringing suits that, while destined to be unsuccessful, are nonetheless costly to defend.     

The long-term impact of restorative justice programming for juvenile offenders

While extant research generally supports restorative justice as an alternative to traditional juvenile court processing, much of this research is limited to short-term follow-up periods examining only prevalence of reoffense. In addition, recent meta-analyses point to several study design characteristics, the impacts of which are not well understood. This study compared long-term outcomes of youth referred to restorative justice and traditional juvenile court processing using multiple outcome measures. Specifically, the authors examined the impact of restorative justice referral on prevalence of reoffense, number of later official contacts, and seriousness of later offending behavior over several follow-up periods up to four years post-referral.     

Dating violence and girls in the juvenile justice system

The purpose of this study is to explore the prevalence and associated behaviors of dating violence among a population of girls in the juvenile justice system. A sample of 590 girls from an urban juvenile justice system completed a questionnaire assessing attitudes and self-efficacy about and occurrence of dating violence. The analysis developed a random effect model to determine a risk profile for dating violence. The strongest predictors of dating violence were (a) initial sexual experience at age 13 or earlier, (b) unwillingness of initial sexual experience, (c) drug use, and (d) low self-efficacy about preventing dating violence. The high prevalence of dating violence and associated behaviors among participants suggests the importance of implementing primary prevention programs to assist preteen girls in delaying initial sexual intercourse and in learning techniques to prevent dating violence.     

Nature and consequences of dismissals: Implications for public safety and crime prevention in criminal courts in America

The role of dismissal as a major case disposition in criminal courts in America has been largely neglected in empirical studies to date, despite long-lasting questions about its nature and important implications for justice goals. This paper is a first attempt to fill in this gap.

Purpose

Drawing on untested assumptions about a possible dismissal-reoffending connection, the paper proposes a public safety framework for examining the nature of dismissals and their consequences for the community. Under this perspective, dismissal is a function of defendants’ risk attributes and contributes to subsequent public safety threat.

Methods

To test these hypotheses, predictive and causal analyses were conducted on an 800-case sample of criminal defendants in one large urban American jurisdiction, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Cases were sampled at the first judicial stage and followed as a cohort for one year to record disposition and post-disposition outcomes.

Results

The findings indicate that defendants’ risk attributes contribute to the explanation of dismissal and that dismissal in itself adds to the probability of subsequent offending.

Conclusions

The findings raise questions about the justice system goals, particularly deterrence and have important policy implications for the processing and disposition of criminal cases in American jurisdictions.