Adolescent Risk Assessment Is Developmental: Why Youth Risk Opinions in New York Family Court Must Be Time-Limited

Stephan M. Carlson, MD, MBA, FAPA · Juvenile and Family Forensics

An adolescent risk opinion is a statement about a moving target. The traits that drive teenage risk—impulsivity, peer susceptibility, an unsettled identity—are the same traits that ordinarily change with maturation. A report that treats a fifteen-year-old's current dangerousness as a fixed attribute has measured the wrong thing. The standard the disposition is actually built around In a New York juvenile delinquency case, the developmental question lands at disposition, and the statute frames it precisely. After a finding, the Family Court must order "the least restrictive available alternative... which is consistent with the needs and best interests of the respondent and the need for protec

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