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Report on the Teen Court Pre 29 <br /> P <br /> generally not be given another chance at Teen Court. There is also no effective mechanism for <br /> identifying these juveniles ahead of time, and, as both judges point out, there will always be <br /> some juveniles who do not take the program seriously. The second issue relates to the fact that <br /> Y <br /> there is no effective mechanism to ensure that the parents of the participants become involved <br /> and assist the child in fulfilling the sentence requirements. Although at the time of accepting <br /> the Teen Court opportunity, parents agree to assist the juvenile in meeting the obligations of <br /> t' <br /> the program, there is little that can be done if they do not. <br /> #: <br /> "q In summary, our investigation into the effectiveness of the Cumberland County Teen <br /> Court program leads to the following conclusions. First, in terms of the program's potential <br /> impact on recidivism, our analyses of short-term recidivism patterns (i.e., recidivism within <br /> 1 7.4 months) suggested no significant difference between the Teen Court and Pre-program <br /> samples in the tendency to recidivate that was not accounted for by the factors of offender age <br /> and nature of offense. For the Teen Court sample, fuller participation in the Teen Court <br /> process seemed to be associated with lower recidivism rates, although interpreting these data as <br /> indicating that the Teen Court process causes decreased recidivism is not possible. The results <br /> indicated that 11.1% of the Teen Court participants who had hearings and completed their <br /> constructive sentences recidivated, compared to 30.8% of those who did not have hearings, <br /> and to 42.1% of those who had hearings but failed to complete their sentences. Our interviews <br /> with individuals familiar with the Teen Court program pointed to several perceived benefits of _ <br /> the Teen Court alternative: that Teen Court allows peers, parents, and the community to be <br /> active participants in fashioning a constructive response to juvenile crime; that Teen Court <br /> sends a message to juveniles at an early stage of unlawful behavior (i.e., before misbehaviors <br /> escalate in seriousness) that they must accept the responsibility for and consequences of their <br /> actions; and that the program enables students to become involved in broadening, positive, and <br /> character-building activities and promotes development of constructive patterns of behavior. <br /> f <br /> e <br /> z <br /> S <br />