Judges in the punitive juvenile court: Organizational, career and ideological influences on sanctioning orientation

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Abstract
As juvenile courts have undergone dramatic structural and procedural transformation in the past two decades, the primary rationale for court intervention has changed from treatment in the “best interests of the child” to desert-based punishment. This article uses data from a survey of Florida juvenile court judges to examine support for punitive sanctioning ideologies. Descriptive findings indicate strong support for both incapacitation and specific deterrence ideologies, and somewhat weaker commitment to retributive motivations for punishing juvenile offenders. In an effort to account for variation in judges' sanctioning attitudes, we compared three alternative explanatory models: organizational environment, individual experiences importation, and ideological influences. Multiple regression results failed to establish strong support for any of these models. One independent variable, however, victim emphasis, exerted a strong negative effect on retributive orientation and support for the incapacitation goal, but a moderate positive influence on specific deterrence.