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End of the Road - Residential Disposals in the Scottish Children's Hearings System

NCJ Number
91752
Journal
Journal of Adolescence Volume: 6 Issue: 3 Dated: (September 1983) Pages: 211-227
Author(s)
F M Martin; K Murray
Date Published
1983
Length
17 pages
Annotation
A study of the Scottish children's hearings system finds that until children's panel members can overcome the widespread assumption that helpful intentions are an adequate substitute for knowledge, there will be an uncomfortable gap between the hearing system's unexceptional philosophy and the reality of its decisionmaking.
Abstract
In a study of a representative sample of 301 children's hearings, particular attention was given to 27 cases in which the child was committed to a List D school. Because the Scottish juvenile justice system has an explicit commitment to promoting the welfare of the children with whom it deals, the decisions were examined with special reference to the objective that the hearing members hoped to achieve. These decisions were divided into several categories: those which reflected only a sense that all alternatives had been exhausted, those which aimed to ensure that the child received formal education or was placed in an environment which would help resolve his/her personal difficulties, and those designed to protect the child from family stresses or to achieve some other specific purpose. Since decisions under the first category are incompatible with the formal philosophy of the system, most of those under the second category entail no knowledge of the effectiveness of List D schools for the purposes in question, and some of those under category 3 are wholly misconceived, it is concluded that there are some significant inconsistencies between the system's ideology and the actual practice of its members. Footnotes and seven references are included. (Author abstract modified)