The Effects of Computerized Information Systems on Juvenile Courts.

In 1906 Roscoe Pound pointed to major deficiencies in the American judicial system which have persisted to the present day. He cited the multiplicity of courts, preservation of concurrent jurisdictions, waste of judicial manpower, inequitable distribution of justice and lag between community norms and the law as principal causes of popular dissatisfaction with the administration of justice. 1 In more recent times concern with the consequences of labeling and institutionalization2 and length of time to process a case3 were added to this list of justice system problems. Many of these problems are organizational in nature and therefore seem to be amenable to organizational interventions. While there have been satisfactory attempts at judicial reform and redesign of the court system, it is the introduction of "new" technologies such as diversion and com puterized information systems that have been heralded as the hope of the future.4 This paper is concerned with the effects of one of these new technolo gies, computerized information systems (CIS), on juvenile courts. It reports the results of a four-year study that gathered before-and-after data on a newly implemented juvenile court CIS.