Discretionary Decision-Makin in Juvenile Justice

The social distribution of youths who engage in delinquent behavior is not ,exactly the same as that of youths who come into contact with the juvenile justice system. Thus a certain amount of discretion characterizes the decisions made at various points within the system. In seeking an understanding of the discretionary processes, researchers have tried to isolate elements related to dispositions at distinct decision points. In addition to offense and offense history, the elements of sex, race, and social class have often been the foci of these studies, several of which are reviewed here. This review suggests that as a youth penetrates further into the juvenile justice system, factors other than his present offense become increasingly salient to decision-makers. It also appears that, once apprehended, girls tend to fare worse than boys do at the hands of the system. However, extreme caution is urged in generalizing from these, studies, which differed in time, place, methodology, and scope. Perhaps the most important conclusion of this review is that a clear understanding of the decision-making processes in the juvenile system is unlikely until a systematic research strategy or set of strategies emerges to replace the piecemeal approaches used to date. Some suggestions for such strategies are offered.