Decision Process in Children's Court and the Social Background Report

Abstract

Experts agree that there is a need to know more about the process of judicial decision-making and that this area has been comparatively ne glected by research workers. This study was concerned with the decision- making process of sentencing of male juvenile offenders by Children's Courts. Bayes's Theorem was used as the mathematical analog of the pro cess. It was found that, in sentencing, most weight is attached to Child Welfare Officer's recommendation. When no recommendation is made, the greatest weight is carried by the number of the offender's previous court appearances. Next in importance are the number of current charges, type of offense, the offender's plea, his age, and number of pre vious charges, in that order. Of least importance are the location of the court, circumstances of offender's current residence, and types of pre vious sentence. Apart from C.W.O.'s recommendation, in specific sen tencing decisions the number of previous court appearances is most weighty in committal to an institution and in admonishment, offender's plea and circumstances of residence carry most weight in admonishment, his age in fines, and types of previous sentence in decisions involving committal to an institution. The findings were discussed critically.