Bureaucratic Discretion in Policy Implementation : The Case of Adjudicating Juveniles as Adults in Florida

The purpose of this dissertation is to explore the use of bureaucratic discretion by
juvenile prosecutors and identify various factors influencing discretion in the
implementation of juvenile transfer provision laws in Florida. The study contributes to
the sparse literature on bureaucratic discretion by providing a framework of the factors
influencing discretion. Both quantitative and qualitative methods are used in the case
study of Florida. The dissertation embraces the idea of methodological pluralism by
combining the findings of extensive interviews conducted with chief juvenile prosecutors
along with descriptive analyses of archival data garnered from Florida's Department of
Juvenile Justice (DJJ).
This research is important since it provides essential policy information through
the various factors that emerge from the study. The findings of the study provide greater insight into understanding how bureaucrats make decisions and could prove useful in
explaining various policy outcomes resulting from the use of discretion in public
organizations. The findings of the research indicate that the discretion of chief juvenile
prosecutors is influenced by a number of factors, including organizational factors,
external influences, client attributes, and characteristics of the bureaucrat.