A STUDY OF POSTADJUDICATION DISPOSITION DECISIONS USING THE FRAMEWORK OF SOCIAL JUDGMENT THEORY (LAW, DECISIONMAKING, CRIMINOLOGY)

The primary objective of this dissertation was to assess whether a social judgment theory study would uncover a significantly greater association between offense/offender characteristics and disposition decisions than generally had been uncovered by labeling theory studies. A social judgment study was conducted, using data collected from a national sample of 317 juvenile justice professionals.;Reviews and critiques of the disposition decision making literature were presented. The narrative review indicated that the studies were so disparate that it was not possible to arrive at a cohesive synthesis of the literature. A meta-analytic review of a sample of disposition studies produced a quantitative "summary" of the literature. Reasons for result differences across studies were discussed.;General methodological problems present in the disposition literature also were discussed. The problems were blamed on the lack of methodological guidance from labeling theory. In contrast to labeling theory, social judgment theory was advanced as a framework possessing positive methodological implications, such as guiding researchers in the identification, selection, and operationalization of variables.;In the main analyses of the dissertation, the results of the social judgment study were compared to the results obtained from the meta-analysis of disposition studies. The degree to which offender and offense information was associated with disposition decisions was significantly greater for the social judgment study than for the labeling studies.;An examination of the juvenile justice system suggested that there is a dual offense and offender orientation. In light of this, it was argued that offense and offender characteristics should be substantially associated with disposition decisions.;The difference was attributed to the positive influence of the social judgment theory framework. However, there was an alternative explanation for the results, which suggested that the difference was due to the greater number of variables investigated in the social judgment study. Further analyses were conducted in order to assess the adequacy of the alternative explanation. On the whole, these analyses were interpreted as supporting the benefits of social judgment theory. The implications of the dissertation results were discussed, and future directions for research were presented.