Consistency in a judicial system: decision making for young persons coming to notice

Abstract

In a society as small and as insular as ours, surely it would be unlikely that regional differences would occur in a judicial system that was formed without making allowances for any such regional differences? If a system made no reference to such regional differences then surely none should occur to disrupt the national pattern that the system was formed about? These were the assumptions at the forefront of my thinking when I began a study of the consistency with which decisions within the 1974 Childrens and Young Persons Act were being made. I adopted the null hypothesis that: "Any two young individuals coming to notice under similar circumstances but in different localities within New Zealand should reasonably expect to be handled in a similar manner". To test the validity of the hypothesis I chose two localities with which to carry out my comparison. Lower Hutt was first of all selected as the base locality. In order to make the most realistic comparison it was necessary to choose another locality that was the closest match on a demographic basis. Using an infrequently chosen method, 'The Index of Dissimilarity', I found that Palmerston North provided the closest match. The system for the handling of those children and young persons that come to notice was then divided into 3 main decision making areas; The Police Dispositions, the Childrens Boards, and the C. and Y.P. Court. It was within these three areas that the greatest number of options were open to the authorities, and hence it was considered that if there were any inter-locality differences they would become apparent here. The comparison was carried out looking at the decisions made at each of these 3 points. When there appeared to be differences the decisions made were examined using a series of 5 variables: Age, Sex, Race, Socio-Economic Status, and the Reason for Coming to Notice. Although the two localities were well matched, they were not identical. Therefore whenever it was felt that one of these variables could help account for any differences that were found, an additional control was included to take into account the original demographic differences. From the outset it became obvious that there were quite noticeable differences between the two localities. The original decisions, the Police Dispositions, highlighted differences in the usage of Police Warnings, Childrens Boards, and the Youth Aid Consultation. Further investigation showed that not only were these 3 dispositions used at different rates, but that there was an eventual variation in the usage made of the C. and Y.P. Court. I considered that the differences found here could only be partially explained using those variables. The Childrens Board was not only used differently on a quantative basis but also in the type of dispositions it made. In this instance the analysis of the variables could offer no insight into why either of these differences occurred. The C. and Y.P Court on the other hand showed no differences in its dispositions despite there being considerable differences in the variables. Young individuals it seems would be unrealistic to expect similar handling throughout New Zealand. While the reason for this is not clear, it seems unlikely to be due to any of the variables which were considered.