Concerned by the increase in the average daily populations at Maclaren School for Boys and Hillcrest School for Girls, Children's Services Division has requested research related to children who have been released from child care centers and private institutions. Child care centers were originally developed as alternatives to the state institutions. As children were diverted to various child care centers, the populations of these two institutions decreased, and plans were made to merge the two schools, thus closing Hillcrest. With the increase in populations at both schools, this is no longer feasible. As much time and effort is spent in placing children outside of the state schools, C.S.D. would like to have some measure of how effectively its workers are diverting children from the correctional system. A speculation exists among many C.S.D. workers that youngsters are not staying in these child care centers long enough to benefit from the varied programs the centers offer. With these factors in mind, a research design was developed which would cover these variables: 1. The child's placement 2. His length of stay (including dates of placement and release) 3. His disposition upon release 4. His living situation one year following his release

The purpose of this project was to determine whether certain personal, socioeconomic, and court-related factors are significantly related to the differential placement of delinquent and dependent children from the detention facility at the Donald E. Long Home. A stratified random sample was composed of 173 placements of children who were held in detention after a preliminary hearing. The review of literature revealed that little systematic. Information is known regarding the placement process as it is related to differential placement of children from a detention facility. A code sheet was developed for recording the information in the children’s records maintained by the court. Fourteen variables were ultimately selected for analysis of their relationship to differential placement. These variables were subjected to three statistical approaches; a descriptive analysis of the random sample, testing of the significance of each variable to the alternatives in placement by either Chi square or analyses of variance, and testing of several variables in combination by discriminant function. This study was limited by the fact that only demographic variables were tested. Although three individual variables were found to have a high degree of significance in relation to placement, the data as produced within the scope of this research project does not provide an effective placement profile. The need for additional research in the area of the differential placement process is clearly indicated. Suggestions are made for future research.