Framing Juveniles: Frame Construction by West County Juvenile Probation Officers.

Meaning construction and its impact on the production of justice has received a great deal of attention by sociologists and criminologists. Despite an impressive body of research and a great deal of agreement on the factors associated with punishment recommendations and outcomes, few researchers have addressed the underlying process of interpretation and construction that inspires the creation of court reports and recommendations. Even fewer have systematically dealt with the possible social origins of probation officer recommendations to the court. In this paper I apply the analytical tools of Snow and Benford?s (1988) framing perspective, currently popular among social movement researchers, to the question of probation officer decision-making. Using data derived from a two year ethnographic study of a juvenile court, I found that the forty-eight probation officers of West County routinely used and negotiated eight frames when talking to each other about their cases. Furthermore, I found that the frames employed by these probation officers influenced the recommendations officers made to the court, and their actions taken in the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]