The theoretical section explores two primary criticisms of the juvenile justice system and their relationship to current dissatisfaction with welfarism: the arguments that children's rights receive insufficient protection in a welfare system and that measures imposed on children should be offense rather than child-oriented. The author addresses the relevance of ideology to social policy, (noting that both English and Scottish laws assume that delinquency is a behavioral condition rather than a legal or judicial category), as well as social controls and the different conceptions of human action within various theories of delinquency and crime control. The author also analyzes biological, behavioral, psychological, sociological, and process-oriented explanations of crime from the deterministic perspective. The second section describes the frames of relevance employed by panel members and magistrates and the methodology used to compare decisionmaking in 2 samples: 33 people in Scotland registered as panel members in 1 administrative area and 31 magistrates on the juvenile bench in an English district during 1972-73. Panel members ascribed more importance to welfare considerations than did the magistrates, but both groups gave more importance to individualistic rather than sociological explanations. Intentionality was equally important to both, although magistrates also considered additional personal responsibility factors. While not overly judicial in their orientation, panel members distinguished between offenders and nonoffenders. Panels and magistrates employed different frames of relevance in their decisionmaking, with panels interpreting reports about offenders in terms of the need for care and magistrates focusing on responsibility. Tables, 5 case studies, approximately 311 references, and an index are included.