Case disposition recommendations of attorneys and social workers in child abuse investigations

This study is concerned with decision making in child abuse investigations. The study used an experimental design to investigate the effects of four case factors that influence child protective service workers' and attorneys' dispositions choices in alleged cases of physical child abuse. The factors were: the physical injury, mild or serious; previous report of child abuse, yes or no; parental reaction, positive or negative; and parental admission of involvement with injury, admit or deny. The main findings were: Attorneys had a tendency to recommend court intervention, while protective workers had a tendency not to recommend court action; and all four case factors had a significant effect on the disposition choices for both professional groups, although injury and previous report accounted for a larger proportion of the variance.