The National Institute of Justice Office of Justice Programs has released an evaluation detailing the effectiveness on teen courts on reducing recidivism for youth. Teen courts—also known as peer courts or youth courts—are a way to offer an alternative to traditional court processing.
Youth participate on a volunteer basis and can opt-out at any time, but will be sent back to a traditional court if they choose to do so. In different models of this type of intervention, youth may hold a variety of roles and adults may sometimes participate. The goal of the intervention is for the youth on trial to take responsibility for and be held accountable to their actions.
Regardless of the type of model being used, teen courts have been found to be ineffective at reducing recidivism. After aggregating the results of 11 studies, a meta-analysis found that none of the studies showed that teen courts had a statistically-significant effect on juvenile recidivism rates. Treatment and control groups were also used.
To read more about this analysis of teen courts, you can visit the OJP’s website here.