This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Mohr, P. B. Articles by Morgan, F. H. Search for Related Content PubMed Articles by Mohr, P. B. Articles by Morgan, F. H. Social Bookmarking                         What's this?

Early Court Adjudication of Juvenile Offenders: Giving the Data Another Chance

School of Psychology, University of South Australia, North Terrace, Adelaide, SA 5000, Australia

Frank H. Morgan

Crime Research Centre, University of Westem Australia, Nedlands, Westem Australia 6907, Australia

A critical analysis is presented of a study purporting to show that juveniles who are adjudicated delinquent at first offence are less likely to go on to prison in adulthood than are first offenders who are more leniently treated. It is argued that this study was fatally flawed in that it compared adjudicated first-offenders with only those non adjudicated first-offenders who had a record of re offending as juveniles; the exclusion from the sampling frame of non adjudicated juveniles who did not re offend precludes any evaluation of the relative prognoses of adjudicated and non adjudicated first-offenders. It is further argued that the researchers' causal conclusions, and the extension of these to the explanation of age-and race-related differences in prognosis, are fallacious, irrespective of the adequacy of the sampling frame.

International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, Vol. 40, No. 4, 354-356 (1996)
DOI: 10.1177/0306624X96404010


CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?