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Seattle University Collaborative Projects - International Academy of ...

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destructive behaviour, mental health, bad peers) and family characteristics (family structure,employment status <strong>of</strong> the parents, mental health <strong>of</strong> the parents, destructive behaviour, criminalantecedents, domestic violence). When focusing on the juvenile court records <strong>of</strong> minors withmental disorders, significantly more information was found on school problems (suspension,truancy), functioning <strong>of</strong> the minor (aggression, running away from the institution, destructivebehaviour) and the received mental health care than in the records <strong>of</strong> minors without a mentaldisorder.Conclusion: The information in the court records varies. More specifically, the information in thecourt records <strong>of</strong> minors with and without a mental disorder differs on several factors. This affectsthe decision making <strong>of</strong> the juvenile judge, which is partly based on court records. Based uponour findings, we recommend minimum standards <strong>of</strong> what ought to be included in a record tooptimize the court files.The Decision-Making Process <strong>of</strong> Belgian Juvenile Judges Concerning Minorswith Mental DisordersLeen Cappon, Ghent <strong>University</strong> (leen.cappon@ugent.be)Purpose: Over the years, numerous studies have examined the factors that influence thedecisions <strong>of</strong> juvenile judges. These factors can be organized in an analytical frameworkconsisting <strong>of</strong> four categories (legal factors, characteristics <strong>of</strong> the minors, structural context andsocial context). Despite high prevalence rates <strong>of</strong> mental disorders in minors in juvenile court,decision-making research has rarely focused on this subgroup <strong>of</strong> the juvenile court population.Therefore, this paper aims to gain insight into the decisions <strong>of</strong> juvenile judges concerning minorswith mental disorders.Method: The judgments <strong>of</strong> 104 juvenile court records <strong>of</strong> minors with mental disorders (n=792),from two juvenile courts in Belgium, were analyzed based on the four categories <strong>of</strong> the analyticalframework. The analysis was executed in Nvivo 9.Results: The majority <strong>of</strong> juvenile judges in their judgments concerning minors with mentaldisorders referred to legal factors and to the information present in the juvenile court record(structural context). Remarkably, almost no references to the mental health problems <strong>of</strong> theminors were found in their judgments.Conclusion: This paper concludes that the judgments more frequently referred to so-called legalfactors than to factors related to the minor with mental disorders. These results urge furtherresearch on the decision <strong>of</strong> the juvenile judge concerning this subgroup.Placement Moves in the Care <strong>of</strong> Minors with and without Mental Disorders inJuvenile CourtS<strong>of</strong>ie Merlevede, Ghent <strong>University</strong> (s<strong>of</strong>ie.merlevede@ugent.be)382

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