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This study views legal process as part of an interactive web of social and cultural relationships. While law may create public policy, its own creation is part of a complex system of institutional deference and subjective behaviors which reflect a larger cultural context. The fears engendered by AIDS help to highlight the underlying cultural biases and patterns of disease scare management ingrained in legal policymaking. These patterns are again enhanced when placed in a criminal context where the resident focus is one of controlling those who precipitate anxiety. Using a method of qualitative comparative analysis, this study concludes that the historical patterns of bias and institutional deference in disease scare management continues in modern criminal court process.

Like many states, New Mexico has experienced a "get‐tough" movement in regard to the handling of juvenile offenders. In 1993 the state formulated a major revision of˜the˜Children's Code, and this revision did a variety of things. Among the changes incorporated into the Children's Code revision was a movement from essentially one category of offenders ‐ delinquent children – with provisions for transferring certain serious offenders to adult court, to three categories. The additional two categories of juvenile offenders included "youthful offenders" and "serious youthful offenders." The upshot of these designations was that the state legislature more carefully defined the jurisdiction of the children's (juvenile) court, and prescribed more severe punishment for the most serious offenders. This article explores some of the forces at work in bringing about the revisions in New Mexico's Children's Code. We argue that the personal and institutional goals of politicians and other opinion leaders were more important than a rational reaction to any real crisis. Specifically, the threat to institutional resources posed by such serious offenders may well have kept institutional stakeholders within the juvenile justice system from objecting to recent changes in New Mexico's juvenile code.