Dispositional Decisionmaking in the Juvenile Justice System: An Empirical Study of the Use of Offense and Offender Information

I. Introduction II. Historical Overview of Decisionmakers' Discretion in the Juvenile Justice System ... A. The Use of Psychosocial Information about the Offender in Juvenile Justice Decisionmaking ... B. The Use of Legal Information about the Offense in Juvenile Justice Decisionmaking ... C. Post-Adjudication Disposition Decisions: A Particular Case for the Use of Offender and Offense Information III. Empirical Research on Dispositional Decisionmaking ... A. Previous Empirical Research Efforts ... B. The Present Study ... 1. Subjects for the Present Study ... 2. Measures Used in the Study ... 3. Results ... a. Descriptive Analyses ... b. Bivariate Correlations ... c. The Multiple Repression Analysis IV. The Rehabilitative Ideal and a Discussion of the Dispositional Decisionmaking Study V. Implications of the Study for Practice, Policy, and Future Research ... A. Strategies to Influence Change at the Individual Decisionmaker Level ... B. Strategies to Influence Change at the Systems Level VI. Conclusion VII. Appendix