Teen/youth courts are diversion programs for children aged 10–15 years that serve as an alternative to the traditional juvenile justice process. The goal of the program is to reduce incidents and prevent escalation of delinquent and antisocial behaviors and behaviors that are criminal violations. Courts may be located in existing juvenile justice systems and in the community and schools. Although the courts have proliferated over the past 30 years, especially in the United States, research on effectiveness has focused primarily on recidivism and survey reports of parent, student, and community satisfaction. Empirical research is recommended to understand the effectiveness of key aspects of teen/youth court programs across variables such as race and gender.

Prosecutors who work sex crimes face considerable legal constraints, for example, the need for corroborating evidence to prove their case, as well as extra-legal factors including biases that influence decision-making across the criminal justice system. Beyond these factors, sexual assault cases, especially those involving college students, present significant emotional trauma not only for victims, but also for prosecutors. This inductive study explores the ways prosecutors handle system constraints and how they experience and manage their response to emotionally difficult cases. Qualitative interview data revealed strategies that prosecutors use to mitigate the psychological impacts of participation in the courtroom experience on survivors of sexual assault and indicators of secondary trauma. In combination, this study’s examination of legal and extra-legal factors, secondary and vicarious trauma, and emotional labor contribute to a theory of how prosecutors work campus sex crime cases, expanding our understanding of both prosecutors’ roles and emotional labor, with implications for research, policy and practice.

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