Assessments and Intake Processes in Juvenile Justice Processing: Emerging Policy Considerations
Recent reforms have expanded the possibilities for gathering and sharing information during juvenile justice processing and have included calls for comprehensive assessments of all juvenile referrals. However, scant attention has been given to questions concerning the timing, goals, or uses of assessments; the structure and goals of intake; or the role of assessments at intake. These questions merit closer investigation because variation in assessment or intake goals and practices will likely constrain the efficiency or efficacy of juvenile processing. Using interview and survey data from a study of county-level intake processes in Texas, this study identifies and discusses their policy implications.
This article is the second of two parts. The first one was published in the issue no 2 of this same journal. The preseni study uses the dependency index and the youth ratio to describe the aging process both at regional and municipal levels. Our data show a yet moderate aging process in (he region. with an uneven distribution throughout the different municipalities.