Agenda - 12-16-1997 - 10e - Laserfiche WebLink

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Report on the Teen Court Pr- 25 W-v 1 These results suggest that, at least for the 7.4 months for which these juveniles were tracked, there was no difference in the tendency to recidivate for the Teen Court and the Pre- program group that was not accounted for by the factors of age and type of offense. Further analysis of the longer-term recidivism rate for the Pre-program sample was possible, however, since these juveniles were diverted between October 1993 and May 1994. This allowed us to track their recidivism for a substantial period -- well beyond the 7.4 months we were limited to for the recidivism comparison. With a minimum individual follow-up period of 20.2 months and a maximum of 28.1 months for the Pre-program sample, we found that 37 individuals, or 38.1%, had re-offended at least once. The average time to recidivate was 13.5 months. In addition, we can examine the recidivism results for the Teen Court sample in terms of their level of participation, as categorized earlier (i.e., the juvenile had a hearing and completed the sentence, the juvenile had a hearing but did not complete the sentence, and the juvenile did not have a hearing). It can be argued that a minimum level of participation -- perhaps that the juvenile remained in the program long enough to have a hearing -- is required before any beneficial effects of Teen Court can be expected. Therefore, we conducted the regression analyses as discussed above, but limiting the Teen Court sample to only those juveniles who had hearings (82 juveniles). The results were similar to those discussed above, although this analysis showed age to be a stronger predictor of recidivism, and it became even clearer that offense type is significantly related to whether juveniles re-offend. Finally, we. also examined the pattern of recidivism in the Teen Court sample for each of the three teen court outcomes discussed above. Of the 63 juveniles who had hearings and completed their sentences, 7 (11.1%) were found to recidivate during the 7.4 month follow-up period. As might be expected, a substantially higher percentage of the 19 juveniles who had hearings but did not complete their sentences were found to recidivate during this period -- 8 of 19, or 42.1%. The recidivism rate for the 13 juveniles who did not have hearings fell between these two figures, with 4 juveniles, or 30.8%, recidivating during the follow-up period. While these differences are notable, interpreting them is difficult because we cannot know the degree to which fuller participation in the Teen Court program is the causative factor in explaining the lower recidivism rate or, alternatively, whether the juveniles who dedicated themselves to completing the Teen Court process are those who would tend not to re-offend anyway. One common-sense conclusion is echoed by these findings: juveniles who commit certain types of offenses are more likely to re-offend. Therefore, a Teen Court program's application of stringent offense-related criteria for acceptance into the program will substantially influence'the degree to which the program appears to be "successful," at least in terms of its potential impact on recidivism. However, the experience with Cumberland County's Teen Court program is that it is not always feasible to strictly apply acceptance criteria such as "first-time" offender or to unconditionally reject juveniles with certain types of offenses. This issue and others relating to possible ways of viewing the effectiveness of these programs are addressed below, based on interviews with persons in Cumberland County who are familiar with the Teen Court program.