An evaluation of the dispositional practices of the Beaver County Juvenile Probation Department from February 1, 1973 to February 1, 1974

Abstract

In this study an attempt was made to examine an individual juvenile court and its probation department. Essentially because the law in Pennsylvania, and the policy of this particular court, permit the informal, non-judicial disposition of any delinquency complaint regardless of charge, the staff of the juvenile probation department exercises broad discretion. The intent of this study was to the decision-making process of the Beaver County Juvenile Probation Department as it relates to the disposition of its cases. An examination of the variables that are related to the different types of dispositions used by the probation department was made. Also in this study, a comparison of the recidivism or re-referral performance of the different groups was made with the intention of determining the effectiveness of the differential case processing methods. Finally, an effort was made to evaluate the financial effectiveness of the non-judicial handling of juvenile cases. This analysis consisted of a comparison of costs between placing a juvenile under the supervision Qf the probation department by a full juvenile court hearing, and the cost of providing this same supervision by informal non-judicial processing.