The Nature of Co-Occurring Exposure to Violence and of Court Responses to Girls in the Juvenile Justice System

This article examines the co-occurrence of different types of victimization and violence exposure, and the effects of court interventions for girls in juvenile court. A life history interview methodology was used to collect qualitative data from 27 girls who had penetrated deeply into a treatment-oriented county court system. The study revealed that early abuse and violence in the home made girls vulnerable to later intimate partner violence and sexual assault when they left to avoid continued victimization. Whereas some court interventions helped girls, others revictimized them. Implications for helpful court practices and future research are presented and discussed. </jats:p

Relationships of Legal Reasoning to Social Class, Closeness to Parents, and Exposure to a High Level of Reasoning among Adolescents Varying in Seriousness of Delinquency

The present research examined the relationships of legal reasoning to social class, closeness to parents, and exposure to a high level of reasoning by a group of adolescents varying in seriousness of delinquency. Subjects were 266 white males, aged 14 to 16 yr., each of whom had been arrested for a minor offense but who ranged from infrequent to repeated offenders. They were randomly assigned to one of two court programs ½ to 1 hr. long. After participation, approximately equal numbers in the program which gave exposure to a high level of legal reasoning ( n = 98) and the one that did not ( n = 103) agreed to a voluntary interview. Participants in the two programs did not differ in their post-program reasoning level on Tapp and Levine's scale, even though one group had been exposed to much reasoning. Social class (Hollingshead's Two-factor Index) was positively but weakly related to reasoning level but not to closeness to parents (Hirschi scale). The findings contradict the use of legal socialization theory as a basis for short court programs or to explain the more serious, repeated delinquency of youths of the lower class and without closeness to parents. </jats:p