NCJ Number
190807
Journal
Juvenile Justice Update Volume: 7 Issue: 3 Dated: June/July 2001 Pages: 3-5
Date Published
2001
Length
3 pages
Annotation
Based on the author's assessment of several hundred juvenile courts, this paper suggests ways to improve caseflow in the juvenile justice system.
Abstract
Caseflow management is the coordination of court processes and resources to move cases in timely fashion from filing through disposition. The time between case events should be long enough to allow for preparation, but short enough for juveniles to understand the connection between their behavior and the sanction for it. The court should supervise case progress and ensure prompt completion of work by collaborative agencies. Three adjoining suburban counties in one State the author evaluated last year reflected a common front-end problem. The schools had hired school resource officers, who chose to refer lesser school incidents to court, thus overloading the court with minor offenses. Such cases should be handled through school-based programs. Police practices in other areas also determine the number and kinds of cases that will be brought to the juvenile court. Policies should be adopted that allow police to perform diversionary tasks in cases where juveniles who have committed relatively minor offenses admit their guilt and are amenable to constructive efforts to modify their problem behavior. Care should be taken to give top priority to the processing of youth in detention and those under electronic monitoring. The intake process should be expeditious, and it should maximize diversion and informal handling. Regarding the management of formal court processing, the author discusses the following topics: speed that does not compromise fairness, the combining of pleas at arraignment with dispositions, the bifurcation of disposition and adjudication, the overuse of psychological evaluation, the management of probation services and violations, the setting of restitution hearings, and the expediting of dispositional placements. Also discussed are the curbing of commitment waiting time, case scheduling, the delay caused by continuances, and the importance of collecting information related to case-processing time.