Attitudes of Ministry of Justice employees regarding judicial social work practices for child victims and children dragged into crime

The study explores the attitudes of Ministry of Justice employees toward forensic social work practices for child victims and those pushed into crime. A descriptive phenomenological design, a qualitative research method, was employed in the study. The study was conducted with 16 participants (a judge, prosecutor, court clerk, bailiff, and attorney) working at the Dinar Courthouse in the Dinar district of Afyonkarahisar province and who have direct contact with children during the judicial process. Data were collected through approximately 30-minute face-to-face interviews using a semi-structured interview form developed by the researcher. Content analysis was used in the analysis of the interviews, and the data were coded using the MAXQDA 2020 program. Five main themes were created: the preliminary interview process, the process of obtaining statements, the process of having a social worker present with the child, social investigation reports, and forensic social work practices. According to the research findings, participants generally find forensic social work practices for child victims beneficial, but they believe these practices are neither sufficiently effective nor necessary for children pushed into crime. As a result, recommendations were developed to strengthen social service-based interventions for children drawn into crime, to make legislative arrangements, and to increase the number of social workers.