NCJ Number
115666
Journal
American Journal of Community Psychology Volume: 16 Issue: 4 Dated: (August 1988) Pages: 525-545
Date Published
1988
Length
21 pages
Annotation
To elucidate the effects of resource availability on clinical judgments, 168 mental health, welfare, and juvenile court personnel from 6 different locales in Virginia rated the amenability to treatment of 4 case vignettes involving juvenile offenders and the effectiveness of a variety of services for youth.
Abstract
Locales were chosen as either low, medium, or high along a continuum of service availability. It was hypothesized that amenability ratings would covary positively with resource levels and with agency type. These factors had significant effects on both types of judgments, but the directions of the effects were not uniform. Personnel in both high and low resource conditions showed relatively lower ratings of amenability on the vignettes and significant positive correlations between the ratings of service effectiveness and the treatability of the vignette youth. The medium resource personnel in all three agencies showed a negative correlation between these ratings, thus portraying youth as more workable but services as not maximally effective. In general, the results suggest that clinical judgment is systematically affected more by contextual factors than has been assumed and that this fact bears consideration in formulating the proper role for clinical judgment in juvenile justice. 3 figures, 2 tables, and 42 references. (Author abstract modified)