NCJ Number
207465
Journal
Crime & Delinquency Volume: 50 Issue: 4 Dated: October 2004 Pages: 615-635
Date Published
October 2004
Length
21 pages
Annotation
The study examined the impact of a rural Illinois teen court on subsequent juvenile and criminal court petitions filed against juveniles who came before the court.
Abstract
Archival records were examined for all 648 juveniles who were processed between 1993 and 2001. All client records had complete information for age, sex, race/ethnicity, referral agent, offense, sentence content, and whether a petition was filed in juvenile or criminal court after teen court. The teen court involved in the study consisted of a courtroom hearing in which juveniles filled most court roles. The types of offenses addressed were a mixture of status offenses and misdemeanors, with an occasional low-level felony. The average sentence given was 11 to 29 hours of community service, serving two or more times on the teen court jury, writing an essay, and an apology. Proportional hazards regression was used to predict being charged with a crime between the date of sentence completion and the follow-up date for up to 8 years. The recidivism rates were 12 percent after 1 year, 19 percent after 2 years, and increasing steadily until 4 years after sentence completion before stabilizing. These findings do not necessarily disqualify teen courts as worthy investments. Although not examined in this study, they may instill civic responsibility in the youth who have roles in their operation; however, enthusiasm for teen court must be tempered by the need to continuously modify its structure and operations in accordance with results achieved. 2 tables, 1 figure, and 50 references