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Santa Clara County Juvenile Domestic and Family Violence Court

NCJ Number
206087
Journal
Journal of the Center for Families, Children, & the Courts Volume: 4 Dated: 2003 Pages: 91-113
Author(s)
Inger Sagatun-Edwards Ph.D.; Eugene M. Hyman; Tracy Lafontaine; Erin Nelson-Serrano
Date Published
2003
Length
23 pages
Annotation
This article describes an innovative court-based intervention program for cases of domestic violence involving juvenile offenders.
Abstract
Although the issue of domestic violence has received a great deal of scholarly attention since the 1970’s, juvenile domestic violence has been largely ignored until recently when teen dating violence was discovered as a “hidden epidemic.” Juvenile domestic violence remains relatively ignored by State legislatures and courts. However, in 1999, the Santa Clara County Juvenile Domestic and Family Violence Court was unveiled as the Nation’s first court-based juvenile domestic violence program. The Court has a dedicated docket, a specialized probation caseload, targeted services for offenders and victims, and strong interagency collaboration. The specialized court was determined necessary because of the extremely deleterious outcomes for youths involved with domestic violence. The legal framework for the court is described, followed by an overview of the goals and program components of the Court. Program components include referral and assessment, specialized investigative and judicial procedures, probation conditions and offenders programs, victim services and advocacy, and intensive probation supervision procedures. The second part of the article presents evaluation results of the Santa Clara County Juvenile Domestic and Family Violence Court. The juvenile and adult records of Court participants, as well as a matched control group of offenders, were tracked over a 2 year period. Approximately half of the juveniles had family histories involving violence or abuse. Offenders who completed the court-based program (75 percent) had significantly lower recidivism rates than the offenders who did not complete the program and offenders in the control group. The evaluation findings underscore the importance of a proactive court-based response to the burgeoning problem of juvenile domestic and family violence. Tables, notes, appendix