Juvenile Aid Panels: An Alternative to Juvenile Court Processing in South Australia

Diversion and other alternatives to juvenile court processing are being used increasingly in many countries. Juvenile aid panels were developed and implemented in South Australia as a part of the 1971 revised Juvenile Courts Act. Findings from the study of a five-year cohort of youths pro cessed through the juvenile aid panels and the juvenile court are presented and analyzed. The findings indicate that the rate of reappearance of youths processed through the panels was essentially similar to that of youths processed through the court. Thus, as far as the criterion of re cidivism is concerned, this more benign and less stigmatizing mechanism is at least as effective as court processing. Panels were not successful in removing all minor and status offenders from processing in the court, nor were the numbers of cases processed by the court reduced as a result of the panels. Quite the opposite—the entire juvenile justice system grew rapidly during this five-year period, largely because of increased numbers pro cessed by the panels.