Legal,Extra-Legal,and Organizational Factors in the Disposition of Juveniles

This paper examines the effect of legal, extra-legal, and organizational factors on the processing of delinquents in selected California counties. A brief review of each perspective is given followed by a discussion of the data base and variables included in the analysis. Overall, bivariate relationships stress the importance of legal compared to extra-legal characteristics. The analysis also reveals clear evidence of the importance of organizational differences in juvenile court processing. Multivariate analysis revealed few differences in this pattern with the exception of “race” where some degree of interaction was found to exist when controls for offense were introduced. An analysis of covariance model shows that case sequence, county, and referral source were the most important predictors of case outcome.