NCJ Number
186327
Journal
Criminal Justice and Behavior Volume: 27 Issue: 6 Dated: December 2000 Pages: 688-715
Date Published
December 2000
Length
28 pages
Annotation
This prospective study examined the relative contribution of court-ordered mental health reports and legal factors in determining the dispositions of 76 juvenile offenders in Ontario, Canada.
Abstract
The 76 male and female juvenile offenders represented consecutive referrals by the court under Section 13 of the Young Offenders Act to the Lakehead Regional Family Centre, Thunder Bay, Ontario, between September 1994 and January 1998. The mental health assessments were conducted by two social workers, two psychometrists, a psychologist, and a psychiatrist. The research used only information normally collected during a court-ordered assessment. The measures included past and current offense seriousness, past and current disposition severity, and Section 13 reports and recommendations. Results revealed that poor quality of home conditions and severity of drug abuse, as coded from mental health reports, significantly increased the odds of receiving custody over a term of probation after controlling for legal factors. Legal factors significantly predicted probation length, whereas mental health factors made only a small contribution through externalizing behavior problems. The overall concordance between clinicians’ mental health recommendations and court dispositions was 67.5 percent. The analysis concluded that although these findings suggested that mental health reports influence decision making, this influence is more limited than expected given that the purpose of these reports is to assist such decision making. Tables, note, and 39 references (Author abstract modified)