The context of clinical judgment: the effect of resource availability on judgments of amenability to treatment in juvenile offenders.

One-hundred sixty-eight mental health, welfare, and juvenile court personnel from six different locales within a state rated (a) the "amenability to treatment" of four case vignettes involving juvenile offenders and (b) the effectiveness of a variety of services for youth. Locales were chosen as either low, medium, or high along a continuum of service availability, and the effects of resource availability and agency type on these judgments were examined. These factors had significant effects on both types of judgments, but the directions of the effects were not uniform. Personnel in both high and low resource conditions showed relatively lower ratings of amenability on the vignettes and significant positive correlations between the ratings of service effectiveness and the treatability of the vignette youth. The medium resource personnel in all three agencies showed a negative correlation between these ratings, thus portraying youth as more workable but services as not maximally effective. In general, the results are interpreted as evidence that clinical judgment is systematically affected more by contextual factors than assumed and that this fact bears consideration in formulating the proper role for clinical judgment in juvenile justice.