加利福尼亚州少年法庭抚养案件中儿童律师代理类型的比较。

Goodman Gail S, Edelstein Robin S, Mitchell Emilie B, Myers John E B

Department of Psychology, University of California, One Shields Avenue, Davis, CA 95616, USA.

Child Abuse Negl. 2008 Apr;32(4):497-501. doi: 10.1016/j.chiabu.2007.12.003.

OBJECTIVE

The present study concerns types of attorney representation for maltreated children involved in juvenile court actions in the state of California. The aims of the research were to document the different types of representation used in dependency cases in 2000 (e.g., public defender, District Attorney, private firms) and to evaluate these types of representation with respect to children's experiences in foster care.

METHODS

Every county in California was surveyed about the predominant type of legal representation used in their dependency court system. In addition, data on children's experiences in foster care were obtained from the Child Welfare System/Child Management System (CWS/CMS).

RESULTS

Findings indicate that, in the majority of counties in California, children were represented by the public defender's office or by a panel of court-appointed attorneys. Approximately equal numbers of counties employed county-affiliated (i.e., District Attorney, public defender, county counsel) and independent (i.e., private firm, panel of court-appointed attorneys) types of representation (47% and 52%, respectively). Further analyses suggested that children in counties employing independent types of representation tended to experience fewer foster-care placements than did children in counties employing county-affiliated types of representation. This relation remained significant when potentially confounding variables were statistically controlled.

CONCLUSION

Results indicated that some types of representation, specifically, private firms and court-appointed attorneys, were associated with one better outcome for children.

目的

本研究关注加利福尼亚州参与少年法庭诉讼的受虐儿童的律师代理类型。该研究的目的是记录2000年抚养案件中使用的不同代理类型（如公设辩护人、地方检察官、私人律师事务所），并根据儿童在寄养机构的经历评估这些代理类型。

方法

对加利福尼亚州的每个县进行了调查，了解其抚养法庭系统中主要使用的法律代理类型。此外，从儿童福利系统/儿童管理系统（CWS/CMS）获取了有关儿童在寄养机构经历的数据。

结果

研究结果表明，在加利福尼亚州的大多数县，儿童由公设辩护人办公室或由一组法庭指定的律师代理。大约相同数量的县采用与县相关的（即地方检察官、公设辩护人、县法律顾问）和独立的（即私人律师事务所、法庭指定律师小组）代理类型（分别为47%和52%）。进一步的分析表明，采用独立代理类型的县的儿童比采用与县相关代理类型的县的儿童经历的寄养安置更少。当对潜在的混杂变量进行统计控制时，这种关系仍然显著。