A Study of Juvenile Offenders of East Baton Rouge Parish Family Court Before and After Implementation of the Juvenile Delinquent Prevention Act of 1974

This study was conducted to compare the number and types of cases handled by the Family Court System during the period of June 1, 1975 through December 31, 1976. The case records of a random sample of this population was used. The variables used in this study were: age, race, sex, types of crimes committed, income, marital status of parents, whether the parents are buying or renting their homes, court time consumed in processing these cases, and school offender last attended to determine the area with the highest percentage of crime rate. A profile was developed on each case record based on the above variables. Frequency distribution, Chi Square, and Pearson product-moment Correlation Coefficient were used to determine significance for each of the hypotheses. The .05 level of significance was utilized as a level at which the hypotheses would be accepted or rejected. Analysis of the data revealed the following with regard to the null hypotheses: H0-] - There was no significant difference in time consumed by the Court procedure between Group A, B, nor C, HO2 - We found that profiles indicating furthur involvement with the Court between Group A and Group B reflected no significant difference, and HO3 - We found that there was significant difference in the number of case records in Group A and Group B