Abstract
Teen Court (TC) is a juvenile diversion program designed to prevent the formal processing of first-time juvenile offenders within the juvenile justice system. TC instead utilizes informal processing and sanctions in order to prevent future offending. Despite its widespread popularity throughout the United States of America, little rigorous research has been conducted on the effectiveness of the TC model for reducing recidivism. Using an experimental design, this study examined the effectiveness of TC in reducing recidivism and improving the attitudes and opinions of juvenile offenders in comparison with a control group of youth who were formally processed. Self-reported delinquency was higher for those youth who participated in TC. TC youth were also found to have significantly lower scores on a scale of belief in conventional rules than had youth who were processed in the Department of Juveniles Services. Implications of these findings are discussed.
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Notes
Godwin (1998) cites the four most commonly used models in TC: the adult judge mode; youth judge mode; peer jury mode; and youth tribunal model. The adult judge model is the most commonly used model nationally among TCs. Youth are assigned to the roles of defense and prosecuting attorneys, clerk, bailiff, and jury. The adult judge presides over the hearing and has minimal involvement. Attorneys provide opening and closing statements and question the offender. The jury is responsible for deciding on appropriate sanctions for the offender. The youth judge model runs similarly to the adult judge model but uses a youth judge rather than an adult judge. The peer jury model does not involve attorneys. The jury members directly question the offender, under the supervision of an adult judge, and are responsible for providing sanctions. The final model, the youth tribunal model, uses three or four youth judges to question the offender and determine sanctions. No jurors or attorneys are present for this type of hearing. An adult supervisor is in the room to oversee the hearing.
Braithwaite (1989) defined reintegrative shaming as sanctioning that punishes an individual for a behavior but also integrates the individual back into society. When punishing the individual, it was made clear that the behavior, rather than the individual, was not bad. Alternatively, stigmatizing shaming excludes the individual from society. In other words, the punishment makes the person feel unwelcome when returning to his/her routines after completing his/her sanctions.
The discrepancy in response rates was due to data collection methods. In Alaska, the final survey was completed on-site, when respondents turned in their documentation showing that they had completed all their sanctions. At the other three sites, the survey was distributed through the mail.
Six had one arrest that occurred prior to the arrest that made them eligible for the evaluation.
The evaluation was presented to subjects by DJS intake officers and TC coordinators. Subjects were not given a choice as to what program they were participating in, only whether or not they participated in the evaluation. Everyone who presented the evaluation used a script to ensure subjects were receiving the same information. Those presenting the evaluation were trained on how to use the script and how to present the evaluation material, including the consent forms, prior to the start of the evaluation. There was no reason to believe that program assignment would impact on consent, given the careful procedures that were used to present the evaluation to subjects.
Research staff attempted to contact the respondents on at least four occasions. Monetary incentives for participation were increased from $10.00 to $25.00 in order to encourage survey completion. Of the 32 participants who did not complete the survey, 12 declined to take part in the survey and 18 could not be reached. There were no differences by program in the rate of decline.
In addition to demographic variables, the evaluators also compared the current offense (e.g., the offense that had resulted in their referral into the evaluation) of both the TC and DJS samples. Current offense did not predict participation in the survey or program assignment.
Unfortunately, there was an oversight when the outcome survey was being constructed. Although the cover of the survey booklet and the oral instructions directed participants to recall their recent juvenile justice experiences, the instructions for questions related specifically to self-reported delinquency asked about delinquent behavior since participation in the TC for both TC and DJS participants. It is possible that this error might have artificially deflated the self-report delinquency scores of the DJS participants to the extent that they read the instructions, recognized TC as something they had not experienced, and answered that they had not been involved in any delinquent behaviors since TC. To the extent that this occurred, we would expect the DJS participants to answer negatively to every question included in the section with the incorrect instructions. We checked this possibility by counting the number of youth who responded negatively to every question in the affected section. Three DJS participants and no TC participants reported no delinquent activity, a difference that was not statistically significant (P > 0.05). Nevertheless, the data were reanalyzed, with those three cases removed. The results indicated that program effects remained the same for all outcomes with and without those three individuals. These analyses, coupled with the consistent direction favoring the DJS youth in the results from the other items on the survey that were not affected by the error, led to the conclusion that the instructions error in the survey was unlikely to have biased the results.
No pre-test was given, due to the limited resources that the TC and DJS agencies had available to them. Recall that each agency initialized the study at intake. The addition of a pre-test at intake would have increased the strain on agencies with limited resources. Given the randomization, the evaluators resolved that the post-test only design would be sufficient.
Either birth date information was unavailable or multiple records came up for the remaining four individuals.
Referral was used rather than intake as these date were known to the evaluator for both TC and DJS participants. There was some concern that program effects would not occur until contact was made with each program; thus, the time between referral and intake should not be included in the follow-up. However, analyses indicated that no recidivating arrests occurred until at least 1 month after referrals. This would indicate that contact was likely made with all subjects prior to any recidivism occurring. Furthermore, analyses indicated that there were no significant differences between the TC and DJS samples regarding the time between referral and first arrest. Thus, any biases introduced by starting the recidivism “clock” at the date of referral are equal for the TC and DJS samples.
Recidivating arrests ranged from one to five arrests for DJS subjects and one to seven arrests for TC subjects.
The demographic variables, age and grade, were so highly correlated (r = 0.93) that keeping both in the model would have led to biased estimates. Only age was included in the analyses of covariance (ANCOVAs).
Cohen (1988) defined effect sizes as small when d = 0.2, medium when d = 0.5, and large when d = 0.8.
For example, in a synthesis of research on intervention effects for juvenile offenders, Lipsey and Wilson (1998) reported an effect size of 0.14 for programs involving non-institutionalized juvenile offenders.
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Acknowledgments
This project was supported by grant numbers JAIB-2003–1022, DYSF-2004–1018, EUDL-2004–1322, DYSF-2004–1322, YSPI-2005–1322, JINT-2002–1322, JJSC-2002–1322, JJAC-2002–1322, JINT-2004–1322, and JJAC-2003–1322 from the Maryland Governor’s Office of Crime Control and Prevention, with federal funds from the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and by grant number UM 040310–7573 from the Justice Research and Statistics Association. Points of view or opinions contained within this document are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the Justice Research and Statistics Association, or any State agency. The authors appreciate the assistance of Andrea Alexander, Mary Beth Stapleton, Jeff Gersh, and Jim Antel, of the Maryland Governor’s Office of Crime Control and Prevention, Mary Abrams and Lakshmi Iyengar, of the Maryland Department of Juvenile Services, and the staff in the Local Management Boards (LMBs) in Anne Arundel, Caroline, and Kent Counties, who participated in this partnership project. Thanks also to each of the Teen Court Coordinators: Amy Galligan, Anne Ferkler, Jim Gossage, Georgine DeBord, Diann Harris, Maryellen Kraese, Erin Fay, and Rebecca Hill, as well as the members of the Maryland Teen Court Association. Finally, thanks to the following University of Maryland staff who assisted with this project: Stacy Najaka, Penny Beatty, Sara Betsinger, Heather Couture, Elizabeth Jones, and Shawn Flower.
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Stickle, W.P., Connell, N.M., Wilson, D.M. et al. An experimental evaluation of teen courts. J Exp Criminol 4, 137–163 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11292-008-9050-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11292-008-9050-8