Dangerousness as a Juvenile Court Judgment

少年法庭人员经常必须作出判决， 关于青少年在涉及法院转介的案件中的不道德行为 涉嫌违法犯罪 三分之二以上的法律 包括“对社区的危险”或“对他人的危险” 作为允许预审必须满足的一项法律的标准 拘留少年超过短暂的两三天紧急情况 期 少年法庭的错误判决是非常严重的。 考虑到判决对法院的重要性， 青少年的未来福利以及 保护社区。 毫不奇怪， 对少年法庭的判决有很大的研究兴趣。 然而，过去的研究很少告诉我们法院的 具体的判断。 大多数研究 结论是，准确预测危险性并不是 可能 Grisso博士认为， 对危险性的预测是太多的结果， 方法和概念上的问题， 自己在这方面的研究。 他假设， 这些尝试的失败，以产生可行的预测 暴力可能部分基于这样一种假设， 暴力与暴力之间存在线性关系， 研究是基于不恰当的样本。 在这项研究中，他将研究变量之间的相互作用， 使用聚类方法，并检查各种 提供数据的少年司法系统行为者人数 他们自己的决定是否正确。 使用的数据来自一个 先前的研究收集了432例病例（由一个国家报告）， （以相同数目的少年法庭人员为样本），他会 发展所感知的青少年案件的原型（典型概况） 被少年法庭工作人员称为“危险” 原型将是 概念化为青少年使用的潜在社会图式 法院在处理案件信息时， 的判断。 这项研究将采取大量的和经验得出的 域的预测变量和联合收割机结合起来的方式， 反映实际经验丰富的决策者的做法。 如果 青少年案件原型的发现，它可以大大提高我们的 在未来的研究能力，以更清楚地了解性质 的判断过程，并检查有效性 这些判断。 此外，它将支持一个 社会图式的方法来描述决策， 法律的背景下，并将支持一般的启发式价值， 这种理论方法在其他决策研究中的应用。

Juvenile court personnel frequently must make judgments about juveniles' dangerousness in cases involving court referrals for alleged delinquencies. The statutes of more than two-thirds of the states include "danger to community" or "danger to others" as a legal criterion that must be met in order to allow pretrial detention of juveniles beyond a brief two or three day emergency period. Juvenile courts' dangerousness judgments are highly discretionary considering the importance of the judgments to the future welfare of juveniles as well as the interests and protection of communities. Not surprisingly, there has been considerable research interest in juvenile courts' judgments. However, past studies have told us little about courts' dangerousness judgments specifically. Most studies have concluded that accurate prediction of dangerousness is not possible. Dr. Grisso feels that the impasse that has been felt in the prediction of dangerousness is the result of too many methodological and conceptual problems that have manifested themselves in studies in this area. He hypothesizes that the failure of these attempts to yield workable predictors of violence could rest partly on an assumption that factors related to violence bear a linear relationship to violence and partly on the fact that studies have been based on inappropriate samples. In this study, he will investigate interactions among variables, using a cluster approach, and examine decisions made by a variety of actors in the juvenile justice system who provided data about their own decisions regarding dangerousness. Using data from a previous study which collected 432 cases (reported by a national sample of the same number of juvenile court personnel), he will develop prototypes (typical profiles) of juvenile cases perceived as "dangerous" by juvenile court personnel. Prototypes will be conceptualized as potential social schemata used by juvenile courts when processing case information to arrive at dangerousness judgments. This research will take a large and empirically derived domain of predictor variables and combine them in ways that reflect the practice of actual experienced decisionmakers. If juvenile case prototypes are found, it could greatly improve our capacity in future research to understand more clearly the nature of the dangerousness judgment process and to examine the validity of these judgments. Further, it would support the value of a social schemata approach for describing decisionmaking in this legal context, and would support generally the heuristic value of this theoretical approach in other decision research.