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The Impact of Teen Court on Rural Adolescents: Improved Social Relationships, Psychological Functioning, and School Experiences

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Abstract

Teen Court is a prevention program aimed at diverting first time juvenile offenders from the traditional juvenile justice system and reintegrating them into the community. Few studies have examined if Teen Court impacts adolescent functioning. We examined how Teen Court participation impacted psychosocial functioning, social relationships, and school experiences in a sample of 392 rural Teen Court participants relative to two comparison samples, one from the same county as Teen Court (n = 4276) and one from a neighboring county (n = 3584). We found that Teen Court has the potential to decrease internalizing symptoms, externalizing behavior, violent behavior, parent-adolescent conflict, and delinquent friends, and increase self-esteem and school satisfaction.

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Acknowledgements

Funding for this research was provided through a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (5 U01 CE001948-03) and from the National Institute of Justice (NIJ-2014-3878).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. North Carolina Youth Violence Prevention Center, 800 N. Walnut Street, Lumberton, NC, USA

    Paul R. Smokowski, Roderick A. Rose, James Barbee & Meredith Bower

  2. University of Kansas, 1545 Lilac Ln, Lawrence, KS, 66045, USA

    Paul R. Smokowski & Caroline B. R. Evans

  3. Arizona State University, 340 North Commerce Park Loop, Suite 250, Tortolita Building, Tucson, AZ, 85745, USA

    Katie L. Cotter

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  1. Paul R. Smokowski
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  2. Roderick A. Rose
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  3. Caroline B. R. Evans
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  4. James Barbee
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  5. Katie L. Cotter
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  6. Meredith Bower
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Correspondence to Paul R. Smokowski.

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The authors have no conflict of interstes including affiliations with or involvement in any organization or entity with any financial interest (such as honoraria; educational grants; participation in speakers’ bureaus; membership, employment, consultancies, stock ownership, or other equity interest; and expert testimony or patent-licensing arrangements), or non-financial interest (such as personal or professional relationships, affiliations, knowledge or beliefs) in the subject matter or materials discussed in this manuscript.

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The study was approved by the UNC Chapel Hill Institutional Review Board.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later ammendments of comparable ethical standards.

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Smokowski, P.R., Rose, R.A., Evans, C.B.R. et al. The Impact of Teen Court on Rural Adolescents: Improved Social Relationships, Psychological Functioning, and School Experiences. J Primary Prevent 38, 447–464 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10935-017-0470-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10935-017-0470-y

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