A teen court evaluation with a therapeutic jurisprudence perspective

Behavioral Sciences and the Law

Behav. Sci. Law 20: 381–392 (2002)

Published online in Wiley Interscience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI: 10.1002/bsl.499

A Teen Court Evaluation witha Therapeutic JurisprudencePerspective

Victoria Weisz, M.L.S., Ph.D.*, Roger C. Lott,M.A., J.D., and Nghi D. Thai, M.A.

Teen court defendants were assessed on several attitudinal

measures when they entered and when they completed

their teen court program. Teen court volunteers and high

school civics students in a control group were assessed on

the same measures at two points in time that approxi-

mated the length of teen court involvement for defendants.

Re-offense rates for defendants were assessed. In addition,

defendants and their parents completed satisfaction sur-

veys. The teen court experience did not significantly im-

pact the attitudes and beliefs of either the defendants or the

volunteers. The re-offense rate for defendants was 13%,

which is similar to other teen court programs and less than

the re-offense rate for the general diversion program in the

county that was the target of the study. Since this teen

court selected youth with the least serious delinquency

activity (primarily shoplifting), conclusions about the pro-

gram’s effectiveness in reducing further offending cannot

be made. Defendants and their parents reported high

levels of satisfaction with their teen court experience but

defendants became more alienated from institutional

authority. This study did not support the teen court

experience as having a generally beneficial impact on

defendants or volunteers that would be expected from a

therapeutic jurisprudence perspective. Copyright # 2002

John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Teen courts have developed as a promising community based approach to the

problem of youth crime. The guiding principal of teen courts is that youth will be

more responsive to the disapproval of their peers than they would be by similar

disapproval or sanctions from an adult legal system (Butts & Buck, 2000). The

Copyright # 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

*Correspondence to: Dr Victoria Weisz, University of Nebraska—Lincoln, Center on Children,Families, and the Law, 121 South 13th Street, Suite 302, Lincoln, NE 68588, U.S.A.E-mail: vweisz1@unl.eduVictoria Weisz is a research associate professor at the University of Nebraska—Lincoln, Center onChildren, Families, and the Law. Roger Lott is a research assistant professor at the University ofNebraska—Lincoln, Center on Children, Families, and the Law, and a doctoral student in the Law/Psychology Program at the University of Nebraska—Lincoln. Nghi Thai is a doctoral student in thecommunity psychology program at the University of Hawaii—Manoa.

number of teen courts has expanded rapidly during the past decade, with almost 300

teen courts in operation by the mid-1990s (Godwin, Steinhart, & Fulton, 1996).

There has been continued growth since then. Teen courts typically serve first time,

non-violent offenders who have admitted guilt to their charges. Depending on the

jurisdiction, youth volunteers serve as attorneys, jurors, and bailiffs. Many courts

have local attorneys acting as judges but some have youth volunteers as judges. Teen

courts vary in whether questioning of the defendant is performed by volunteer youth

attorneys or by volunteer jurors as in a grand jury. What appears to be consistent

among teen courts, however, is that the sentencing of the youth offender is done by

the youth jury. In most, if not all, teen courts, defendants are required to serve on the

jury after they have completed their dispositions ordered by the teen jury (see

Godwin et al., 1996, or Butts & Buck, 2000, for a discussion of variations in teen

court organization).

The developers of teen court believed that because of adolescents’ responsiveness

to peer influence, a court where other teens would question and confront an errant

youth’s behavior and attitudes would have a powerful rehabilitative effect. Further,

the integration of teen offenders into the jury after they have completed their

sentence is believed to help teen offenders re-integrate into the pro-social commu-

nity. Teen court was also expected to have a positive socialization effect on the

volunteer teens (non-offenders who act as attorneys, jurors, etc.), who would learn

about the legal system, about the impact of law breaking, and about other youth who

get into trouble (Mays, Harrison, & Maupin, 2001).

Unfortunately, the growth in the development of teen courts has not been

accompanied by careful evaluations of their effectiveness or impact (Butts & Buck,

2000; Mays, Harrison, & Maupin, 2001; Minor, Wells, Soderstrom, Bingham, &

Williamson, 1999). Several systematic evaluations of particular teen court programs

had mixed results on their effectiveness in reducing recidivism, particularly beyond

one year (Hissong, 1991). Butts, Buck, and Coggeshall (2002) used comparison

groups and found significantly lower six month recidivism rates in two of the four

teen courts they studied. A study conducted by the North Carolina Administrative

Office of the Courts that included a control group did not find that teen court

involvement reduced re-offense rates of its defendants (as cited by Butts & Buck,

2000). An additional study with a control group also found that teen court

involvement did not reduce re-offense rates (Seyfrit, Reichel, & Stutts, 1987). No

reported study to date has used random assignment as part of its case selection. Still,

there are numerous anecdotal reports from teen courts about the effectiveness of

their programs in reducing recidivism rates.

Two factors, selection biases and the difficulties of accurately measuring re-

offending, make these self-evaluations of teen courts questionable (Butts & Buck,

2000). Teen courts may be selecting the least likely to re-offend youth for their

programs. Thus, lower recidivism rates may be more a reflection of who gets

referred to teen court rather than the effectiveness of the program. Secondly,

recidivism is a problematic outcome variable. Many programs merely look to

whether a youth has been arrested in the same jurisdiction as the teen court within

a fairly short period of time. Youth that re-offend in a different jurisdiction, at a later

time, or who re-offend without getting caught, would be considered successes.

Consequently, a broader approach to assessing effectiveness would be useful.

One approach would be to assess whether the teen court experience has general

382 V. Weisz et al.

Copyright # 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Behav. Sci. Law 20: 381–392 (2002)

beneficial effects for the people who are involved in it. Such an examination is

consistent with the perspective of therapeutic jurisprudence (Shiff & Wexler, 1996;

Winick, 1997).

A therapeutic jurisprudence approach is consistent with teen court aspirations.

Teen courts are an example of attempts to make the institutional system more

responsive to the needs of young people who find themselves in trouble in their

communities. Although not conceived as an application of the principles of

therapeutic jurisprudence, teen courts have been cited as an example of the types

of change in law and procedure that would fit those principles (Shiff & Wexler,

1996).

Therapeutic jurisprudence studies the extent to which substantive rules, legal

procedures, and the roles of lawyers and judges produce therapeutic or anti-

therapeutic consequences (Wexler & Winick, 1991). Therapeutic jurisprudence

began primarily as an inquiry into the law as it dealt with mental health issues.

However, it has since been used as a heuristic for exploring many different areas of

law and procedure (see Wexler & Winick, 1996).

A therapeutic jurisprudence approach would explore whether participation in

teen courts have general beneficial or therapeutic effects on youth. The first step in

taking a therapeutic jurisprudence approach would be to consider the beneficial

effects that one might hope that teen courts would have for all the participants, both

defendants and volunteers. For instance, one might hope that teen court participa-

tion would increase empathy of defendants. The lack of empathy has been

associated with conduct disorders in adolescents (American Psychiatric Association,

2000). Consequently, increasing empathy could have a beneficial impact in redu-

cing the likelihood of an early youth offender from developing a full blown conduct

disorder.

One might also hope for an increase, rather than a decrease, in empathy of

volunteers (some observers have informally expressed concern that teen volunteers

might become less empathic towards their troubled peers because of the position

of power the volunteers are put into). One might hope that teen court partici-

pation by all participants would decrease cynicism about institutional authority, or

at least not increase cynicism. Negative attitudes toward institutional authority

have been associated with delinquency tendencies among youth (Reicher &

Emler, 1985) and improved attitudes towards institutional authority have been

suggested as possible benefits of teen court (Butts & Buck, 2000). Finally, one

might hope that both defendants and volunteers would gain a more realistic

assessment of the fairness of life’s opportunities and obstacles. It seems important

that a quasi-legal experience for both the delinquent youth and the volunteers

enhance the youths’ realistic perceptions of the fairness of systems while at the

same time enhance awareness of the potential unfairness of the distribution of

opportunities.

One would hope that teen offenders would be less likely to commit other crimes

after they have had a teen court experience. Recidivism data has been collected in a

surprisingly few teen court evaluations (Butts & Buck, 2000). Most of these

evaluations have included official recidivism or re-arrest rates rather than self-

reports. The recidivism rates for teen court programs have ranged from 3% to close

to 30% (Butts & Buck, 2000). Differences in participant selection and program

design make it difficult to compare rates across programs.

Teen court evaluation 383

Copyright # 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Behav. Sci. Law 20: 381–392 (2002)

Finally, one would hope that youth and families who participate in teen courts

would feel that their treatment was fair and respectful and that the experience was

useful.

The present evaluation of a teen court was undertaken not only to determine

whether teen defendants were likely to re-offend after the intervention, but also to

address whether the teen court experience impacted meaningfully on the attitudes

and feelings of the defendants and the volunteers. The teen court that served as the

focus of this evaluation is a typical ‘trial type’ teen court with teens acting as lawyers

and jurors. It was hypothesized that teen court intervention would not increase the

empathy of the defendants, because the studied model did not have a victim

component. However, it was hypothesized that the empathy of the volunteer teens

would increase because they would have had first hand experiences with youth

whose lives were troubled. It was hypothesized that teen court defendants and

volunteers would increase their respect for institutional authority. It was hypothe-

sized that defendants would increase their beliefs in the justness of the world,

because of the intended fairness and respectfulness of the process. Alternately, it was

expected that volunteers would decrease their beliefs in the justness of the world

because they would have the experience of comparing themselves to youths who

were facing greater obstacles with fewer resources than many of the volunteers.

Finally, it was expected that the recidivism rates of teen court defendants would

be lower than other diversion program defendants and that defendants and

their families would have positive feelings and attitudes about the teen court

experience.

METHOD

Participants

All teen court defendants and all teen court volunteers in a newly developed teen

court were invited to participate in this study. In the studied county, a medium sized

mid-western urban area, teens who are referred to pretrial diversion are assigned to

various diversion programs based on a variety of factors including the offense.

Shoplifting was the predominate crime for youth referred to the teen court. Teen

court volunteers were recruited from all the high schools (and middle schools that

had ninth grades). In general, the volunteers were school leaders and good students.

Specific data on the volunteers’ school performance was not available; however, the

teen court coordinator who worked closely with the volunteers described them as

mostly A students. In addition to the defendants and the volunteers, all students in

four senior level civics classes were invited to participate in the control group. These

classes had a 20 hour community service requirement. The high school that was

used for the study is the most racially and ethnically diverse in the community.

Participants were 177 teen court defendants (93 males, 84 females), 39 teen

court volunteers (9 males, 30 females), and 136 high school civics students (67

males, 69 females). Of the 177 teen court defendants, 78 were tested a second time

(35 males, 43 females). Of the 39 teen court volunteers tested the first time, 20

provided later scores (8 males, 12 females). Of the 136 high school students, 134

provided later scores (65 males, 69 females).

384 V. Weisz et al.

Copyright # 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Behav. Sci. Law 20: 381–392 (2002)

Procedure

Participants were assessed at two points in time using several standardized measures

as well as a satisfaction survey developed for this project. The defendants were

assessed on the first day they appeared in teen court and at the time of completion of

their teen court program, typically about four months later. They were asked to

complete the forms immediately at time 1, but were sent home with the forms at the

completion of their teen court program. The high attrition rate for teen court

defendants is likely due to the differences in the youths’ feelings about cooperation

at the two stages of data collection. The initial request and the first series of

questionnaires came at the beginning of their teen court involvement. Despite

informed consent procedures that clearly stated that the youth were not required to

participate and that their teen court experience would not be influenced by whether

they participated, defendants may have felt that cooperating would be a better thing

for them to do. They would not have felt this pressure at the second data collection

point when they had completed their teen court experience.

The volunteers were assessed near the beginning of their teen court involvement

and approximately four months later. The high attrition rate for volunteers was

caused by high volunteer turnover. The time demands for teen court volunteers

were fairly high and it is possible that some youth who initially volunteered may have

dropped out after they realized the impact of their time commitment. The high

school civics students were assessed near the beginning and near the end of the

spring semester, also approximately four months apart. The low attrition rate for

this group was likely because data was gathered during class time when it took little

personal effort for the students to participate.

Re-offense rates of the defendants was assessed approximately one year after the

first teen court appearance. The County Attorney’s office compared the list of teen

court participants with the list of all teens who had been charged with a crime during

the previous 12 months.

Measures

Attitudinal Measures

The Davis Empathy Scale (Davis, 1983) is a multidimensional approach to

assessing aspects of empathy. This scale consists of 28 statements that participants

are asked to agree or disagree with on a five-point Likert scale. It includes items such

as ‘I am often quite touched by things that I see’ and ‘when I’m upset at someone,

I usually try to ‘‘put myself in his shoes.’’ ’ Separate subscales assess empathetic

concern, personal distress, perspective taking, and fantasy.

The Attitudes to Authority Scale (Reicher & Emler, 1985) was slightly modified

for a U.S. sample (e.g., a statement referring to a ‘posh accent’ was replaced by one

describing classmates as ones whose parents have money). This scale has been

utilized in a number of studies of delinquents and delinquency propensity. The scale

asks participants to agree or disagree with 17 statements on a five-point Likert scale.

The statements include suggestions that ‘breaking a bad school rule is OK,’ and ‘it is

OK to do something which is against the law if it is to help a friend.’ The scale has

Teen court evaluation 385

Copyright # 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Behav. Sci. Law 20: 381–392 (2002)

four subscales: alienation from institutional authority, fairness of school rules,

bias by those in authority, and the absolute priority of rules (‘you should never

break the law’).

The Just World Scale (Rubin & Peplau, 1975) is intended to determine the

extent to which the participants believe that fate and society are just and whether

people who experience negative events deserve their fate because of their behavior.

The Just World Scale has 20 questions and uses a five-point Likert scale that

asks the participant’s agreement with statements such as ‘students almost always

deserve the grades they receive in school’ and ‘by and large people deserve what they

get.’ The scale has no subscales.

Teen Court Satisfaction Surveys (youth and parent versions) were developed for

this study. The youth version has 29 items and uses a five-point Likert scale that

asks the participant’s agreement with statements about the youth’s satisfaction

with the process including perceptions of fairness, respectfulness, and helpfulness

(Tyler, 1994).

RESULTS

Analyses involving pre- and post- (or time 1 and time 2) comparisons were

conducted on data from those participants who provided both sets of data.

Davis Empathy

Repeated measures tests were performed on the four subscales of the Davis

Empathy scales. There were no main effects for time (between time 1 and time 2)

for any of the subscales. Further, there were no interaction effects between time and

group membership (defendant, volunteer, or control), indicating that there were no

intervention effects for either the defendants or the volunteers.

Attitudes to Authority

Repeated measures tests were performed on the four subscales of the Attitudes to

Authority subscales. The repeated measures tests found a significant main effect for

time on the Alienation from Institutional Authority subscale, with participants

becoming more alienated over time (Wilks lambda¼ 5.04, p< 0.05). There was no

interaction between time and group membership, indicating that there were no

intervention effects for either the defendants or the volunteers.

There were no main effect and no interaction effects found for the Fairness of

School Rules.

There was a trend for a main effect for time for the Bias of Authorities subscale

with participants viewing authorities as more unfair over time (Wilk’s lambda¼ 3.4,

p< 0.07). There was no interaction effect, indicating that there were no intervention

effects for either the defendants or the volunteers. The repeated measures test for

the Absolute Priority of Rules subscale found a significant main effect for time with

participants believing less in the absolute priority of rules over time (Wilk’s

lambda¼ 3.96, p< 0.05). There was no interaction between time and group

386 V. Weisz et al.

Copyright # 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Behav. Sci. Law 20: 381–392 (2002)

membership, indicating that there were no intervention effects for either the

defendants or the volunteers.

Just World

Repeated measures tests were performed on the Just World scale. There was no

main effect for time (between time 1 and time 2). Further, there was no interaction

effect between time and group membership.

Re-Offending

An examination of the records of the County Attorney’s office showed that about

13% of the teens that had entered the program had re-offended within a year. Of

that 13%, 3% began the program but did not finish their sentences. The other 10%

completed the teen court program and re-offended within one year of their sentence

completion.

This compares with an approximate 24% re-offense rate for the entire diversion

program in the same county. The Diversion Program data did not separate out the

types of Diversion Program. Teen court was one of the diversion programs included

in the 24% rate.

Attitudes and Re-Offending

Table 1 shows ANOVAs examining the differences between defendants who re-

offended and those who did not in the various attitude/personality test and subtest

scores. Time 2 scores were not analyzed because only three of the defendants who

provided Time 2 scores had re-offended.

Table 1. Did defendant re-offend?

N Mean F Sig.

Davis Empathic Concern Yes 14 23.43 3.56 0.06No 116 25.66

Davis Fantasy Yes 14 21.79 1.00 0.32No 116 23.33

Davis Personal Distress Yes 14 18.21 0.26 0.61No 116 18.80

Davis Perspective Taking Yes 14 21.79 3.59 0.06No 116 24.34

Attitudes to Authority—Alienation Yes 14 17.93 5.38 0.02No 115 14.43

Att. to Auth.—Fairness of School Rules Yes 14 17.57 0.02 0.89No 115 17.68

Att. to Auth.—Bias of Authority Yes 14 6.71 0.00 0.98No 115 6.70

Att. to Auth.—Absolute Priority of Rules Yes 14 5.43 0.02 0.88No 115 5.54

Just World Score Yes 14 65.64 0.26 0.61No 117 64.43

Teen court evaluation 387

Copyright # 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Behav. Sci. Law 20: 381–392 (2002)

Youth who later re-offended were significantly more alienated when they began

their teen court program than were youth who did not later re-offend. Additionally,

youth who later re-offended were less empathic and less likely to take the perspective

of others than were youth who did not re-offend, although these differences were not

quite statistically significant.

A discriminate analysis was conducted with the institutional alienation, Davis

empathy, and Davis perspective taking variables. The only variable that remained as

a predictor was the alienation score.

Satisfaction with Teen Court

Tables 2 and 3 show the mean agreement ratings for youth and their parents with a

variety of statements about the teen court experience. Both youth defendants and

their parents reported a high degree of satisfaction with the overall teen court

experience. They gave high ratings to the coordinator’s helpfulness, the respectful

treatment they received, and the fairness of the process. Neither the defendants, nor

their parents, thought that the teen court experience was especially beneficial to their

school grades, family and friend relationships, or substance use.

Table 2. Youth satisfaction survey

Mean

I was satisfied with the entire teen court experience. 4.32The teen court coordinator clearly explained the process to me. 4.70Teen court sentences are more lenient than Juvenile Court sentences. 4.04The sentence I received was important to me. 4.21Teen court fees are less than Juvenile Court costs. 3.90The fees were important to me. 3.92Teen court is a quicker process than Juvenile Court. 3.90The speed of the process was important to me. 4.03You do not get a record when you go through teen court. 4.58Not getting a juvenile record was important to me. 4.82I was very nervous going before a courtroom of people my age. 3.99I was given an opportunity to tell my side of the story. 4.62My lawyer(s) did a good job presenting my case. 4.43The jury heard enough information to make a good decision. 4.36I was treated respectfully. 4.49The teen court procedures were fair. 4.51The sentence I received was fair. 4.38The sentence I received fit my offense. 4.33The community service I completed was a worthwhile experience. 4.02Teen court has helped me deal more effectively with my situation. 4.36Teen court has helped me develop more of a sense of responsibility for my actions. 4.51If teen court had not been available to me, my situation would have become much worse. 4.37I would recommend teen court to a friend who had been cited with an offense. 4.64If I was cited with an additional criminal offense, I would choose to go to teen court. 4.66I believe that going to teen court helped me improve my school grades. 3.15I believe that going to teen court helped me improve my family relationships. 3.44I believe that going to teen court helped me improve my relationships with friends. 3.24I believe that going to teen court helped me improve my awareness of community. 4.07I believe that going to teen court helped me decrease my drug and/or alcohol use. 3.24

1¼disagree completely; 5¼ agree completely.

388 V. Weisz et al.

Copyright # 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Behav. Sci. Law 20: 381–392 (2002)

DISCUSSION

The teen court experience did not appear to impact meaningfully on the studied

attitudes and beliefs of the defendants and the volunteers. As expected, empathy was

not affected by teen court involvement for the defendants. Contrary to expectations,

empathy was also not impacted for the volunteers.

Also contrary to expectations, teen court defendants and volunteers did not

increase their respect for institutional authority. In fact, defendants, volunteers and

controls all became increasingly more alienated from institutional authority and

became somewhat more likely to view authorities as biased. They also all became

less likely to believe in the absolute priority or rules. Teen court participation did not

contribute significantly to what appears to be a general movement to less respect for

institutional authority. However, it also did not lessen this movement.

There were significant group differences on a number of these variables, with the

control group of students being the least respectful of institutional authority. It is

possible that this difference can be accounted for by age. We do not have age

information for participants. However, the control group members were high school

seniors (ages 17–18), the mean age for shoplifters (the predominant teen court

defendant) in the diversion program was 14.5, and the volunteer mean age likely fell

someplace in between. It is possible that youth, in general, become more cynical

Table 3. Parent satisfaction survey

Mean

I was satisfied with the entire teen court experience for my child. 4.41The teen court coordinator clearly explained the teen court process to me. 4.76The teen court coordinator was helpful throughout the process. 4.82The check-in procedure for the court hearing was smooth. 4.47My child was given the opportunity to tell his or her side of the story. 4.78My child’s lawyer(s) did a good job presenting his or her case. 4.48The jury heard enough information to make a good decision. 4.46I was treated respectfully. 4.86The teen court procedures were fair. 4.57The teen court procedures were efficient. 4.51The sentence my child received was fair. 4.40The sentence my child received fit his/her offense. 4.31There were a variety of worthwhile community worksite choices available to my child. 4.39The procedure for scheduling community service hours was efficient. 4.27The community service my child completed was a worthwhile and meaningful experience. 4.41Teen court has helped my child deal more effectively with his/her situation. 4.42Teen court has helped my child develop more of a sense of responsibility for his/her actions. 4.41Teen court has helped my child understand the negative impact of illegal behavior. 4.69If teen court had not been available to my child, his/her situation would have become 4.14much worse.I would recommend teen court to another teen who had been cited with an offense. 4.67If my child was cited with an additional criminal offense, I would want him/her to 4.48go to teen court again.I believe that going to teen court helped my child improve his/her school grades. 3.07I believe that going to teen court helped my child improve his/her family relationships. 3.45I believe that going to teen court helped my child improve his/her relationships with friends. 3.42I believe that going to teen court helped my child improve his/her awareness of community. 4.20I believe that going to teen court helped my child decrease his/her drug and/or alcohol use. 3.60

1¼disagree completely; 5¼ agree completely.

Teen court evaluation 389

Copyright # 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Behav. Sci. Law 20: 381–392 (2002)

about institutional authority as they grow older. In any event, teen court involve-

ment did not have an impact on this set of attitudes.

The teen court experience also did not have an impact on the extent that the

youth believed in a just world. Thus, none of the attitudes and beliefs that were

assessed in this study were impacted for either volunteers or defendants by their

participation in teen court.

The non-random system of assignment to the teen court program in this county

did not permit an evaluation of the program’s effectiveness in reducing re-offense

rates for defendants. The 13% re-offense rate of this group is in the middle of the

range of other teen court program evaluations. This rate is considerably lower than

the overall re-offense rate of 24% for the overall diversion program in which this teen

court program is based. Youth who were referred to and completed teen court were

less likely to re-offend than youth who were referred to other diversion programs.

Unfortunately, the possibility of selection bias, in that younger offenders commit-

ting less serious offenses were referred to the teen court program, can not be

discounted. In fact, it is as likely that the differences in recidivism rate are a result of

the nature of the youth in the different programs as it is the result of a particular

impact of the teen court intervention.

The most positive findings in this study were the overall high levels of

satisfaction that teen court defendants and their parents reported about their

experiences. Youth and their parents felt that they were treated with respect, that

the process was fair, and that the youth had an opportunity to tell his/her side of

the story. It is surprising to contrast these findings with the increases in alienation

from institutional authority and beliefs that authorities are biased experienced by

the youth offenders. One would expect that an institutional experience that a

youth perceived as fair and respectful would increase the youth’s respect for

institutional authority. That did not seem to be the case here. This disparity

does suggest that researchers should be wary of assuming that high satisfaction

ratings of various legal processes necessarily corresponds to increased respect for

institutional authority.

An important underlying assumption in the development of teen court is that

youth will be more influenced by the disapproval of their peers than by adults.

One element of this assumption is that youth close in age to the youth offenders will

be experienced as a peer group. An unfortunate drawback of this study is that we

never asked youth offenders how they viewed the youth volunteers serving in

the institutional structure of teen court. The volunteers in the teen court we

studied were typically better students and more part of their school’s leadership

than were the teen offenders. It is possible that they were viewed more as the power

holders in the community, rather than peers, to the teen offenders. Thus, even

though the defendants might have viewed the process as fair and respectful, if the

process was embedded in the same status structure that the youth experience in their

schools and community, it is not surprising that the process did not decrease their

alienation from institutional authority.

Youth offenders who later re-offended, as compared with youth offenders who

did not later re-offend, were more alienated from institutional authority at their

entry into teen court and although not at quite a statistically significant level they

also appeared to be less empathic and less able to take the perspective of others. The

teen court intervention had no impact on any of these factors.

390 V. Weisz et al.

Copyright # 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Behav. Sci. Law 20: 381–392 (2002)

Teen court proponents believe that volunteering in teen court is beneficial to the

teens who do so. This data does not indicate that the teen court experience

meaningfully impacted on the volunteers on any of the dimensions we studied.

We did expect that giving successful youth an opportunity to work closely with other

youth who were having troubles would increase empathy and would give teens more

realistic beliefs about the fairness of the world. Unfortunately, neither of these

dimensions were changed by the teen court experience. Nonetheless, teen court

volunteers may have accrued other benefits from their involvement such as

increased knowledge about the legal system, improved oral communication skills,

or increased self-confidence, so this study does not suggest that there were no

benefits to volunteering.

Thus, the teen court that was studied failed to demonstrate a beneficial impact on

defendants and/or volunteers that would be anticipated by a therapeutic jurispru-

dence perspective. It is possible that the experience had a beneficial impact on

dimensions that were beyond the scope of this project.

In conclusion, the results of this research do not support the effectiveness of a

teen court process in impacting the youth participants in meaningful ways. Although

selection bias factors inherent in this study precluded an empirical test of the

effectiveness in reducing the re-offense rate, the rate of re-offending in this study

coupled with the re-offense rates from other studies (Butts & Buck, 2000; Seyfrit

et al., 1987), do not provide support for the effectiveness of teen court in diverting

youth from a delinquency/crime trajectory. The findings of this and other research

suggests that teen court proponents need to reassess some of their underlying

assumptions about if and why teen court would be an effective alternative to other

potential dispositions for youthful law violators.

A controlled evaluation of teen court effectiveness in reducing recidivism,

involving random assignment of youth, is warranted to determine whether teen

court itself is an effective intervention for youth offenders. In addition to determin-

ing whether teen court is effective in reducing re-offending, a therapeutic jurispru-

dence approach offers researchers a framework within which to consider whether

there are additional potential beneficial effects for participants and then assess

whether these effects are achieved.

Further, if teen courts do not prove to be effective in reducing recidivism, a

therapeutic jurisprudence framework might be helpful in thinking about whether

there are aspects to this model that might prove beneficial to youth. For example,

one of the chief assumptions of the teen court model is that because there is ample

evidence of peer influence on youth behavior, especially delinquent behavior, courts

and juries filled with teens will have more influence on a youth’s behavior than

would courts run by adults. However, if the juries and lawyers are not a part of the

specific peer group of a youth offender their influence may be lessened. Further, if,

as seems to have been the case in the teen court we studied, the volunteers are from a

different school social class (e.g., ‘A’ students, leaders, etc.) than the offenders, the

experience may serve to stigmatize rather than positively influence the offender. It

would be interesting to ask teen offenders how they viewed the volunteers who serve

as lawyers and jurors, and whether there are different perceptions of volunteers who

had been prior offenders and those who had not.

Additionally, a therapeutic jurisprudence approach that addresses peer influence

might lead to a completely different intervention approach. An intervention could be

Teen court evaluation 391

Copyright # 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Behav. Sci. Law 20: 381–392 (2002)

designed to include the youth offender’s actual peer group in some process, not

necessarily in a trial, but perhaps in a group focused intervention intended to

strengthen the pro-social members’ influence in the group and weaken the anti-

social influences.

Finally, among the findings of the study that suggest further research are

those drawing a connection between initial alienation from authority and later

re-offending. If such attitudes and beliefs do characterize young people who come

into the system and later fail, assessments of such beliefs may be useful so that these

youth can receive interventions that will address the alienation they feel. Without

programmatic interventions that address such beliefs, and perhaps seek to increase

the young offender’s feelings of empathy and ability to take the perspective of others,

teen defendants seem unlikely to leave the system better prepared to assume a

positive place in our society.

REFERENCES

American Psychiatric Association. (2000). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (4th ed.).Washington, DC: Author.

Butts, J. A., & Buck, J. (2000). Teen courts: A focus on research. Washington, DC: Office of Juvenile Justiceand Delinquency Prevention.

Butts, J. A., Buck, J., & Coggeshall, M. B. (2002). The impact of teen court on young offenders. Washington,DC: Urban Institute.

Davis, M. H. (1983). Measuring individual differences in empathy: evidence for a multidimensionalapproach. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 44, 113–126.

Godwin, T., Steinhart, D., & Fulton, B. (1996). Peer justice and youth empowerment: An implementationguide for teen court programs. Washington, DC: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration inconjunction with the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.

Hissong, R. (1991). Teen court: is it an effective alternative to traditional sanctions? Journal for JuvenileJustice and Detention Sanctions, 6, 14–23.

Mays, G., Harrison, P., & Maupin, J. (2001). Teen court: An examination of processes and outcomes.Crime and Delinquency, 47, 243–264.

Minor, K. I., Wells, J. B., Soderstrom, I. R., Bingham, R., & Williamson, D. (1999). Sentence completionand recidivism among juveniles referred to teen courts. Crime and Delinquency, 45, 467–480.

Reicher, S., & Emler, N. (1985). Delinquent behaviour and attitudes to formal authority. British Journalof Social Psychology, 24, 161–168.

Rubin, Z., & Peplau, L. A. (1975). Who believes in a just world? Journal of Social Issues, 31(3), 65–89.Shiff, A. R., & Wexler, D. B. (1996). Teen court: a therapeutic jurisprudence perspective. In D. B.

Wexler, & B. S. Winick (Eds.), Law in a therapeutic key: Developments in therapeutic jurisprudence(pp. 287–298). Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press.

Seyfrit, C. L., Reichel, P., & Stutts, B. (1987). Peer juries as a juvenile justice diversion technique. Youthand Society, 18, 302–316.

Tyler, T. (1994). Psychological models of the justice motive: antecedents of distributive and proceduraljustice. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67, 850–863.

Wexler, D. B., & Winick, B. J. (Eds.). (1991). Essays in therapeutic jurisprudence. Durham, NC: CarolinaAcademic Press.

Wexler, D. B., & Winick, B. J. (Eds.). (1996). Law in a therapeutic key: Developments in therapeuticjurisprudence. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press.

Winick, B. J. (1997). The jurisprudence of therapeutic jurisprudence. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law,3(1), 184–206.

392 V. Weisz et al.

Copyright # 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Behav. Sci. Law 20: 381–392 (2002)