There is less geographic variation in the commitment rate of juvenile offenders than is commonly assumed. Apparently, judges across the country develop a similar standard of what percentage of youths they face should be committed. This standard may be similar across the country because it represents broadly shared ideals. However, there is much…

The issue of controlling discretion in large public institutions is a crucial one in modern society, and procedural legal reforms are often viewed as one tactic of control. Using due process guarantees in juvenile courts as the substantive issue, this paper tests the utility of procedural reform in reducing discretion. Results indicate that…

This paper assesses the parens patriae orientation, which is often considered to be at the core of the operation of juvenile courts, and discovers that existing ideas concerning its role must be revised. In opposition to common theory it appears that parens patriae at best shares influence with a number of other orientations in juvenile courts,…

This paper examines the impact of organizational factors on the rate at which juvenile courts commit referred youth to institutions. Analyzing a national sample, the paper demonstrates that both the rate at which cases are handled informally and the rate at which judges commit those youth who appear before them independently influence the overall…

This paper reexamines the concept of organizational maintenance and argues that the common assumption of an inverse relation between maintenance and the sensitivity of organizations to client needs is not valid. A logical analysis suggests that maintenance should lead to a greater sensitivity to environmental forces that control important…