In mock courtrooms supervised by a local judge, first-time teen offenders face a jury of their peers and receive sentences that often keep them in school and out of the juvenile justice system for minor crimes.
Combined with other statewide efforts such as promoting restorative justice techniques in schools and eliminating zero tolerance policies, youth courts are helping to reduce the number of incarcerated teens in California charged with minor crimes.
“We catch these kids early, and it’s making a difference,” David Wesley, a Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge who founded the first teen court in L.A. 25 years ago, said in a statement. “We are incarcerating fewer kids, and saving millions of dollars keeping them out of the juvenile justice system.”
With the United States still leading the industrialized world in youth incarceration rates, California is among the top 12 states with the highest rates–locking up 271 youth offenders per 100,000 people under the age of 21, according to a 2013 report from the Annie E. Casey Foundation and advocacy group Children Now. On the flip side, researchers found that the number of kids behind bars has decreased more than 40 percent since 1995, with numbers continuing to decline.
[For more of this story, written by Alisha Kirby, go to https://www.cabinetreport.com/...uvenile-court-system]
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