Question: Currently I am facing a dilemma about receiving referrals. During the time period of November 2004 to May 2005, our Teen Court has only received four referrals. Right now I am only getting referrals from the Youth Court Counselor, but I am looking at ways of receiving referrals from schools, but I am reluctant because I don’t know how helpful Teen Court would be, do you have any suggestions?
I receive a copy of tickets issued to all juveniles/minors each day and send a letter and brochure to the parents outlining how Teen Court works, showing benefits and requirements and telling them they may request this from the Judge if they meet the criteria. Plus my judge is VERY SUPPORTIVE and in favor of Teen Court.
We work very closely with our School Liaison Officers in our local school and they find Teen Court to be a very useful resource for them....for school fights (& other forms of disorderly conduct), minor theft, property damage, etc. They usually write the citation but "hold" it, indicating that if the Teen Cooperates with Teen Court and successfully completes their sanctions, the citation will be discarded. This enables them to be restorative while enforcing "with some teeth" school/community rules & laws. It helps to have school administration "on board," working toward restorative practices in their schools.
We receive referrals from the juvenile officer, schools, the juvenile intake worker, and the DA. Schools refer individuals for incidents that happen at school...through the school liaison officer.
The criteria for referrals for our Teen Court program are as follows:
Youth up through age 17 (at time of offense)
Misdemeanor of low level felony offense
Offender accepts responsibility for his/her action (admission of guilt)
Offender agrees to accept the sentence of the teen jury
Offender is appropriate for a "sentence"
Offender is developmentally capable of absorbing the concept of responsibility and learning from the imposed sentence.
Fist time offender, successful completion of previous diversion program, or at the discretion of the referring officer.
The last point is able to open up a lot of door for referrals. By adding the line "at the discretion of the referring officer" helps to add to the number of referrals. I tell the officers, if it seems like going through Teen Court would be the best way to handle the situation, we will look at the case. Usually if there is a questionable referral, I can always kick it back to them. The Probation officer does an initial intake interview of the potential referral. We do not count status offenses such as runaway or truancy against the potential defendant. Also more minor infractions such as skateboarding or tobacco violations we do not take into account. Teen Court is seen as a one time offer for more serious violations such as petty theft or possession of marijuana. One way that we have increased referral is by making a presentation to the Probation juvenile diversion officers directly, so they can ask specific questions about the program, and you then become a familiar presence to them, and a way to decrease their workload. Some officers may have trouble resigning control over some of their referrals, I simply comply with their requests and stay in constant communication with them on the status of their referral.
In our district individual municipalities and law enforcement from the Sheriff and the Colorado Highway patrol are asked to file directly with the District Attorney's Office. The District Attorney reviews the cases and determines which cases are referred to the Juvenile Diversion Program. Our Teen Court is part of the Diversion program. The cases not appropriate for Teen Court or Diversion are sent through our county or district court system. It sounds like more involvement is needed from your District Attorney, Police Departments, and municipalities. We receive no referrals from our school districts. The schools are encouraged to file complaints with local law enforcement.
Although we are a small community, we average 2 to 3 cases each week. My suggestion is to meet with whoever would be your referring agent from the school (principal, counselor, etc.) and discuss with them which discipline problems could be helped either by your sentencing options or by defendants having to account to peers for their behavior. You might work out a plan where you would see a certain type of infraction - in our case, the principal refers many fights to us because we have options such as anger management classes or counseling that can produce change - also when the young people have to explain their reason for fighting (i.e. "she was looking at my boyfriend") out loud to a jury they often see their actions in a whole new light.
I am one of several intake workers for the Juvenile Office.
All youth with charges filed(petitions) come to our office. Once the intake is completed and if peer jury is recommended, it is on the following basis.
Usually first time arrest by Police for Misdemeanor, Felony or Summary.
No major problems at home.
Is admitting guilt and will pay restitution if any.
Made mistake and say they will not do again.
Parents believe that youth is sincere and agree to abide by jury disposition.
Parents don't believe youth needs to be placed under probation supervision.
Letter is written to Police Department to find out if they have objections. They have 5 days to respond. Very few have requested not to go to peer jury. Unless another arrest pending or conflicting info from police the final decision is up to coordinator for a youth to go to peer. If a felony, letter is written to victim, if they object, juvenile proceeds to court.
“Been there, done that, got the t-shirt” and survived! A couple of years ago the Owego (NY) Youth Court’s referrals dwindled off to from 12-15 per year to zero referrals for an entire year (!). The decline in referrals was directly attributed to a steady decrease in juvenile offenses in our service area, which is a good thing!
It took a concentrated effort on my part to educate the community, police officers and probation plus, more importantly, the gradual transition from accepting only misdemeanors to accepting non-violent/non-drug related felonies. We also expanded our jurisdiction from the boundaries of our village (7.5 sq. miles) to those of our town (91 sq. miles), which in the end did not result in as many referrals as anticipated. Accepting felonies resulted our caseload more than doubling (not counting the year of no cases) from 12-15 per year to 25-30 cases per year.
Note: Primarily our YC referrals come directly from county probation but we also accept cases directly from police officers, parents and the school.
Schools are always looking for ways to keep students in school. Suspension does not work, it doesn't address the issues it only gives a cooling off period for school & student, but in today's society, most parents are out of the home during the day and therefore suspended students are not being monitored, which can also affect the community if they are wandering about. By sending a student to teen court the school has another option. Ours is used when they've already tried detention, in and out of school suspension and are on their way to being referred to a superintendent's hearing. We hear relatively minor things, more nuisance type of charges, some fights. I have a paper that lists the reasons why teen court is a good option for schools to consider if you would like me send you any information please contact me at (315) 435-6345 or email
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. I work all summer.
All of our referrals come from our department and we can determine the case load on any given court date. You might want to contact your local police juvenile division for referrals
All of my Teen Court defendants are referred by my Municipal Court. When I was recruiting for volunteers for the program, the schools were all over it! I would suggest contacting your local schools and keep in touch with the Courts. Perhaps a formal presentation to them and some promotional materials will help. It has been my experience, that they more they learned about the program, they more they liked it.
We receive most of our referrals from the School Resource Officers. We receive them directly from them on certain crimes/offenses. You would just have to first of all talk with your Juvenile Court Counselors and funding sources to see if they would allow this to occur and then talk with the School Resource Officers about the program.
If you have any questions about my responses please feel free to contact me at
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Lack of referrals - I will take referrals from schools. Often, they are faced with a behavior incident which could result in arrest, but they feel that is too harsh. At the same time, the traditional school consequences seem too lenient. Youth Court provides excellent alternative. The respondents are informed by the school that if they do not complete their Youth Court sanctions as ordered, the school will then proceed with arrest. If that happens, they will not be accepted back by Youth Court on the probation referral.
