| Abstract: | Summary In 1965 it was already the practice of this juvenile court torequire the preparation of pretrial social inquiry reports.The study examined the effects of particular types of information,including the probation officers' advice, on the court's disposaldecisions. For the majority of cases the Bench and the probationofficers, in terms of their advice in the social inquiry reports,agreed on the disposal that was obviously themost suitable for a particular offender, while in a substantialminority of cases the Bench deferred to the adviceoffered and rejected the advice in less than 10% of cases. Themagistrates indicated that the offenders' home background, followedby the seriousness of their offences, were the two most importantfactors they took into account in arriving at their disposaldecisions. In spite of the close agreement between the magistratesand the probation officers on the most suitable disposals forparticular offenders, the effectiveness of the disposals, measuredby the proportions of offenders reconvicted during the fiveyears following the disposals, was no better than expected.The statistical association between the measure of the offenders'home background (based mainly on the content of the social inquiryreport) and the likelihood of reconviction was low enough toquestion the relevance of this kind of information for the selectionof effective juvenile court disposals. |
