An Empirical Typology of American Metropolitan Juvenile Courts

The research reported in this paper develops a typology of American metropolitan juvenile courts through factor analysis of 96 court characteristics and a cluster analysis of courts based on indicators of five derived factors representative of structural dimensions. The data were collected through a mail and telephone survey of court personnel in a saturated sample of 150 metropolitan juvenile courts. The empirical typology is presented and its implications for future comparative studies and studies testing differential processing are discussed.