Allegheny County Juvenile Court Hearing Officers Project: Final Report

This document, published in October 2002 by the National Center for Juvenile Justice, offers the final report of the Allegheny County Juvenile Court Hearing Officers Project. According to the authors’ introduction, ‘Since 1998, a large infusion of judicial resources have helped the Allegheny County Juvenile Court gradually gain control of its dependency workload – to the extent the juvenile court currently sets some precedents for other urban courts in Pennsylvania to follow. This report affirms the progress made by the court with an analysis of empirical data on the court’s full workload dating back to 1993. The study also demonstrates the juvenile court’s expanding ability to measure its performance in the handling of dependency cases on an ongoing basis – a task that juvenile courts across the country struggle to accomplish on a sustained basis. Finally, it offers recommendations for the juvenile court to consider making additional court improvements.’ An appendix contains a user’s guide to CMIS Pittsburgh – a database application that serves as the County’s report generator for dependency cases.

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