Court-Ordered Care

Abstract

This dissertation focuses on one of the most vulnerable groups in society: children and youths who interact with the child protection system. In the first chapter, I study the effects of court-ordered removal of children from their homes and placement in out-of-home care on all-cause mortality, suicide, and accidental overdose. I also examine the effects on hospitalization related to mental illness and substance abuse, criminal behavior, and a range of parent outcomes. In the second chapter, I analyze the effects of peers placed in residential treatment facilities on each other’s outcomes using novel data on the universe of youths (over 16,000) admitted to state-owned treatment facilities in Sweden between 2000 and 2020. In the last chapter of my dissertation, I investigate the role of judges’ experience in the decision to remove children from their homes and the accuracy of these decisions. To further deepen our knowledge about the causes of variation in decision-making, I also examine how judges respond to decisions made by appellate courts.