No abstract

Teen court defendants were assessed on several attitudinal measures when they entered and when they completed their teen court program. Teen court volunteers and high school civics students in a control group were assessed on the same measures at two points in time that approximated the length of teen court involvement for defendants. Re-offense rates for defendants were assessed. In addition, defendants and their parents completed satisfaction surveys. The teen court experience did not significantly impact the attitudes and beliefs of either the defendants or the volunteers. The re-offense rate for defendants was 13%, which is similar to other teen court programs and less than the re-offense rate for the general diversion program in the county that was the target of the study. Since this teen court selected youth with the least serious delinquency activity (primarily shoplifting), conclusions about the program's effectiveness in reducing further offending cannot be made. Defendants and their parents reported high levels of satisfaction with their teen court experience but defendants became more alienated from institutional authority. This study did not support the teen court experience as having a generally beneficial impact on defendants or volunteers that would be expected from a therapeutic jurisprudence perspective.

The Court-Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) Program has been rapidly expanding in its 25-year history, although there has been little sound, empirical data assessing its value. The present study compared 21 judicial hearings regarding children who had a CASA with 20 hearings for children who were on a waiting list for a CASA. Judges, CASAs, and guardians ad litem provided the data for the study. The findings indicated that CASA involvement improves the breadth and quality of information provided to the courts. Unfortunately, CASA involvement also appears to decrease the involvement of the guardian ad litem. Implications of these findings are discussed.

Journal of Criminal Justice 32 (2004) 465-475. doi:10.1016/j.jcrimjus.2004.06.010Received by publisher: 0000-01-01Harvest Date: 2016-01-04 12:21:00DOI: 10.1016/j.jcrimjus.2004.06.010Page Range: 465-47

Increasing state legislation and media interest give the appearance of public support for parental responsibility laws; however, some national polls suggest otherwise. Based on disparate global and specific attitudes in other areas of the criminal justice literature, it was hypothesized that relatively weak global support for parental responsibility would be diminished even more if a specific juvenile was described. The current studies confirmed that participants were even less supportive of parental responsibility laws when a specific juvenile and his parents were described than they were when they answered questions about parents in general.