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JUVENILE JUSTICE IN SCOTLAND: AN ANALYSIS OF PANEL MEMBERS' ATTITUDES TOWARD JUSTICE
Abstract
The Scottish juvenile justice program is unique in that it deals with juvenile offenders in an informal discussion setting with volunteers, the panel members, making the effective decisions concerning the appropriate care for each child. This study focuses on the panel members and their attitudes toward punishment, societal control of deviant behavior and crime causation. Out of 1,600 panel members in Scotland, a random sample of 301 was chosen. A questionnaire consisting of a Likert attitude scale and various background questions was mailed to each panel member in the sample. 75% of these questionnaires were completed and returned and are the basis of this analysis. Past research has focused on an ideological conflict between whether or not the 'lay' personnel of the Children's Hearings hold professional or non-professional attitudes toward justice. Variables which have been noted to influence these attitudes include occupation, income, educational achievement, length of service as a panel member as well as background variables such as age, sex, and the size of the city or town in which the panel member resides. The hypotheses in this study state that occupation, income, education and length of service will all influence attitudes toward justice. It was anticipated that respondents in the more professional occupations would hold more contemporary attitudes as will individuals with high levels of education and income. Length of service was seen to have an important influence with long term panel members holding more contemporary attitudes. The findings from this analysis support the hypotheses concerning occupational and educational levels but does not support the hypotheses concerning income and length of service. In a regional level analysis, comparing representative and nonrepresentative regions in terms of occupational and educational heterogeneity, the hypothesis stating that the panels from more representative regions will have more classical attitudes was supported.
Subject Area
Criminology
Recommended Citation
OLLENBURGER, JANE CHRISTINE, "JUVENILE JUSTICE IN SCOTLAND: AN ANALYSIS OF PANEL MEMBERS' ATTITUDES TOWARD JUSTICE" (1982). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI8228155.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI8228155