Youth Courts
Youth courts, also known as teen courts, student courts, and peer juries, are courts in which youth decide the dispositions for their peers who have committed minor offenses. Youth courts have proliferated through a grassroots movement of legal and community leaders who believe youth can help each other turn away from delinquent behavior and become productive members of their communities. Youth courts also help participants learn about the American justice system and their role in making it work.The National Youth Court Center (NYCC) at the American Probation and Parole Association (APPA) provides training and technical assistance and serves as an information clearinghouse for youth court programs in the United States. The Center was created by OJJDP and funded through OJJDP’s Juvenile Accountability Incentive Block Grants program. The Center assists in developing and operating effective youth court program models that strengthen the ability of the juvenile justice system to hold youth accountable for their behavior while enhancing public safety through active participation in the juvenile justice system.
Youth for Justice supports both the educational and delinquency prevention goals of youth courts. The program sponsored ABA’s publication of Technical Assistance Bulletin No. 17: Youth Court: A National Movement, which was widely distributed to bar associations, LRE practitioners, juvenile and family court judges, and other juvenile justice professionals.5
It promotes awareness of youth courts by featuring them in its publications and at its national meetings. It is also sponsoring ABA’s development of educational/training materials for youth who volunteer in a youth court and Phi Alpha Delta Public Service Center’s effort to link law students and lawyers to local youth court programs. Other national Youth for Justice projects are also involved in youth courts. Street Law, Inc., is developing interactive LRE community service educational lessons linked to the most common offenses for which youth are referred to youth court, and the Constitutional Rights Foundation is planning to modify service learning materials for use in youth courts.
| A Youth Court Teen Volunteer
When I began Youth Court at age 14, I was wary of its intent. The idea of erasing a teenager’s criminal record in exchange for community service hours appears to be a lenient consequence for a wrongful act. How are young people ever supposed to learn what is acceptable and what isn’t if society is willing to look the other way? I realized that it is easy as an outsider to claim that youth courts are just another way for teenagers to escape responsibility. Looking back on my 4-year involvement with the program, I can now answer the question without any reservations. Although the program is not entirely flawless, it offers a unique opportunity for teenagers who make that one life-altering mistake. Youth court gives students faced with the repercussions of having committed a crime the chance to fix the problem before it escalates into something uncontrollable. Instead of being bound by what is often a one-time mistake, these students can move on without the stigma of a criminal record. After working with these students, I saw that many of them had other issues that contributed to their actions. Taking on the role of student defense lawyer, I listened to their concerns and saw that many honestly regretted what they had done. In the end, the offenders that I encountered were glad to place their fate in the hands of their peers, and they learned from their mistakes.
—Maria A. Comella
Youth volunteer for The Colonie Youth Court in New York for 4 years |
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