Imogen Brown

Are Interim Care Orders Necessary to Improve School Attendance in Truants Taken to Juvenile Court

Abstract Seventy‐eight children were randomly assigned to an ‘interim care order’ (N = 42) procedure or a ‘repeated adjournments’ (N = 36) procedure. Within each group, children were randomly allocated to an ‘interview’ or ‘non‐interview’ condition. Two outcome measures, level of school attendance and criminal offending, were used to evaluate the two procedures and the effect of interviewing. Interim care orders were found to be no more effective than repeated adjournments in improving school attendance or in reducing the number of criminal offences committed subsequently. However, a general decline in criminal offending, following the start of court adjournments was noted in both groups. Interviewing of parents had no significant effect in improving the school attendance of their children either independently or in interaction with the experimental procedures.

Frequency of Adjournment

Two further randomly controlled trials, carried out by juvenile court magistrates in Leeds to evaluate different forms of the adjournment procedure, are outlined in this chapter. Having established the supremacy of adjournment over supervision, magistrates in Leeds virtually abandoned supervision orders in dealing with truants and employed adjournment almost exclusively. A survey carried out a few months after the prospective trial comparing adjournment and supervision had been completed showed that the satisfactory response of children to the adjournment procedure in terms of school attendance had been maintained. Nevertheless, it became increasingly apparent that some magistrates were routinely adjourning the case for a month, believing this to be the best way of using adjournment. Conversely, other magistrates appeared to be equally convinced that children should come back to court after a week, and only if improvement had occurred would they make an adjournment for a fortnight. Subsequently, with continuing satisfactory progress, the fortnight was extended to 3 weeks and likewise, eventually, monthly adjournments were made.

Supervision or Adjournment

This chapter describes the beginnings of the Leeds Truancy Project. In the early 1970s, most children who were taken to juvenile court in Britain because of failure to go to school ended up on a supervision order. This meant that they were supervised by a social worker for a specified period, normally 1 or 2 years, and had no further contact with the court. Juvenile court magistrates in Leeds were dissatisfied with this disposal and preferred to have children come back to court repeatedly so they could monitor their progress. This necessitated adjourning the proceedings without making any sort of court order and arranging for the child to return after a stated number of weeks. This procedure of repeated court appearances has come to be known as adjournment. Supervision and adjournment were compared to see if it could be established which procedure was more effective.

Juvenile Courts and Truancy

There are two principal ways in which children who fail to attend school satisfactorily get taken to juvenile court. The first is on account of associated juvenile delinquency, that is, as a result of offenses they have committed. The second is because of the school attendance problem, when education authorities take this course of action. Two investigations carried out in Leeds were concerned with these respective means whereby truants get to court. They are outlined in this chapter.

The Use of the Randomized Experiment to Evaluate Alternative Court Disposals

Other than the first retrospective study, all the Leeds truancy experiments have used a random allocation design. Building on the results of the supervision/adjournment prospective trial, these studies form a coherent sequence in which the various elements of the adjournment system are evaluated. This evaluation takes the form of randomly allocating subjects to one of two alternative procedures at a given stage in the system, one of which has become a standard procedure in a majority of cases, the other of which is an innovation. The outcome measures used have been school attendance over a specified period following the imposition of the procedure and recorded criminal offending during the follow-up period.

Compulsory Education and Failure to Go to School

Legally enforceable education developed gradually in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The Elementary Education Act of 1870 created school boards and encouraged them to get local bylaws passed to compel attendance at school and set a school-leaving age. Following this Act, some authorities complied, but many did not. School boards and school attendance committees were created and officials were appointed whose job it was to ensure that children went to school. They were known as board men or attendance officers. Parliamentary statutes that followed the 1870 Act gradually created a national legal framework for compulsory education. By the turn of the century there was an Act of Parliament setting the school-leaving age at 12. However, it was only after the Education Act of 1918 that all children in the country from age 5 to 14 had to be educated in an approved manner.

Features of Severe School Attendance Problems

In this chapter a further study of the features of severe school attendance problems is outlined (Bools et al. 1988).

Are Interim-Care Orders a Necessary Part of the Adjournment System?

From the inception of the adjournment system in the early 1970s, the interim-care order was regarded by the juvenile court magistrates in Leeds as an integral part of that procedure. As soon as a case was proved, the chairman of the bench made it clear to both child and parents what the powers of the court are, and, in particular, that an interim-care order could be made. However, unless the evidence presented to the court at the time the case was proved gave concern as to the physical or moral safety of the child, or the child stated his or her refusal to attend school, the first step was normally to adjourn the case for a short period. At the same time, the usual warning to the child was that unless he or she achieved full attendance during that period, except for absence caused by illness that was covered by a medical certificate, the child would find himself or herself on an interim-care order after the next court appearance.

Truancy and the Juvenile Courts in Leeds

Before considering the research undertaken in Leeds in the juvenile court, we pause to describe how children who failed to attend school were dealt with in the Leeds courts.

The Leeds Truancy Project: A Magistrate’s View

As is so often the case in science and medicine, the series of investigations that have come to be known as the Leeds Truancy Project arose accidentally and to meet a perceived need. Following the enactment of the Children and Young Persons Act 1969, juvenile court magistrates were required to deal with children brought to court by the local education authority under Section 1(2) (e) of that Ac.As required by that Act, juvenile courts in the early seventies in Leeds dutifully made supervision orders when the case made out by the education authority was found proved. The practice in Leeds then was to appoint social workers employed by the newly created local authority social services department to supervise children 14 years or under, while the supervision of children over 14 was entrusted to the probation service.