For more than a century, the knowledge of psychology has intersected with that of the area of law (Manita & Machado, 2012). Social technicians are responsible for the elaboration of reports/forensic psychological assessments and the implementation of socio-educational measures. Melton et al. (2018), found a high degree of agreement between the opinions of forensic psychologists and the final conclusions of legal decision makers. In the Portuguese context, Machado and Matos (2016) found in a study with ten judges that forensic psychological assessment is seen as an important auxiliary instrument of judicial decision. The literature demonstrates the existence of contributions from technical evaluation in judicial decision-making, but it remains to know the broader contributions of psychology to law in the youth justice field in Portugal, so this study This study aims to analyse the contribution of psychosocial assessment in juvenile justice decision making adding an analysis of the pre and post sentencing dimensions.

FCT

Juvenile Justice,Decision Making,Psychological assessment