VERDICT NOT IN ON TEEN COURTS

BUENA PARK, Calif. In his day in court, the 14-year-old boy faced a tough
interrogation about his admitted possession of marijuana on school grounds.

Didn't you know marijuana was illegal? Aren't you supposed to be an example
to your younger siblings? How did you feel when you smoked marijuana
before? How did you feel when you got caught? Are you really sorry, or are
you playing through this to get off easy? Sitting beside his mother, the
boy answered each question, his mumbling and fidgeting revealing
embarrassment. The questions in Orange County's teen court didn't come from
the judge, but from six jurors--all youths like himself.

Unlike a mock court, teen court is no classroom exercise. Though the
sessions usually are held in high school auditoriums or libraries, the
cases, offenders, judges and punishment are real.

Trying to find a way to deal with youth crime, Orange County is among a
growing number of jurisdictions nationwide that have established teen
courts in an attempt to steer first-time offenders back on the right track.
The goal of teen courts, also known as peer courts or youth courts, is to
address problems in the early stages, before offenders become hardened
criminals.

Teen courts are designed as alternatives to the 100-year-old juvenile
justice system, which has become so overwhelmed with violent crimes and
other serious offenses that youths such as the 14-year-old boy often get
off with little more than a warning.

Because evidence on the success of teen courts is mostly anecdotal, the
Justice Department has commissioned a study to determine how teen court
compares with juvenile court. Researchers are evaluating teen court
programs in Tempe, Ariz.; Anchorage; Rockville, Md.; and Independence, Mo.
They will compare those programs with juvenile court cases in neighboring
communities as part of a study expected to be completed next year.

"The juvenile justice system has become so overloaded, bureaucratic and
inflexible," said Jeffrey Butts, director of evaluation for the Urban
Institute's teen court project. The non-partisan, Washington-based think
tank is conducting the study for the Justice Department.

Butts said he also is looking at whether teen court programs have adverse
effects, such as forcing the youths to "self-identify as delinquents and
offenders."

By going to teen court, offenders escape fines, possible detention time and
criminal records that they would have been subject to in juvenile court.
And after completing the requirements of their sentences imposed under teen
court, the youths have the charges dismissed, clearing their record.

Juvenile justice officials like teen courts because they free their dockets
of low-priority cases.

The key to teen court is the in-your-face questioning and sentencing by the
youth jurors. The thinking is that this "positive peer pressure" can carry
more weight than adult judgments.

"Kids are used to having authority figures tell them what to do," said
Judge Joan Reilly, who presided over the 14-year-old boy's case. The jury
ordered the boy to complete 30 hours of community service, attend classes
regularly, stay away from drugs and alcohol and attend a drug-education
program.

"Sometimes hearing it from an authority figure sounds like noise, and they
tune it out," Reilly said. "But a peer has more credibility."

In the last five years, the number of teen courts has grown about
sevenfold, from 78 to 560, according to the American Probation and Parole
Association. About 100 more are under consideration.

Teen courts are becoming a popular option for many communities searching
for answers to youth crime. According to the Department of Justice, 2.8
million juveniles were arrested in 1997, the latest year for which
statistics are available.

Fueled by the proliferation of gangs and the glorification of violence in
movies and video games, according to experts, arrests rose by 90 percent
between 1986 and 1993. The rate fell in subsequent years, but the latest
figures still represent a 50 percent increase over 1985.

The Justice Department's Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency
Prevention offers grants to help finance teen courts. The programs are
administered by community groups, municipal governments, probation
departments and courts as well as volunteers, and therefore take many forms.

There's the youth jury model, like the one in Orange County, in which an
adult judge presides and teen jurors determine the sentence. There's the
youth attorney model, in which teens serve as prosecuting and defense
attorneys. There's the youth judge model, in which a teen serves as judge.
And there's the youth tribunal model, in which a panel of three teen judges
decides the sentence.

What is consistent among the hundreds of courts is that they handle
first-time offenders who committed such non-violent, misdemeanor crimes as
shoplifting, vandalism, disorderly conduct, truancy and possessing small
amounts of drugs.

Since the youths are required to plead guilty before entering the teen
court diversion program, the jurors' role is to render the punishment and
chastise the offender.

"I felt more comfortable talking to them than a probation officer," said
one youth who had gone through the teen court system six months ago after
he was arrested for possessing drugs. As part of his punishment, he was
assigned 24 hours of community service, ordered to attend drug and alcohol
education classes for four months, write a five-page letter of apology to
his parents and serve as a teen court juror at Buena Park High School.

"It's not as intimidating," he said, "the punishment was pretty reasonable."

His father said, "I get the impression that the kids were harder on (his
son) than the judge would have been. The kids can cut through the bull."

Teen courts have been around for about 50 years, operating informally in a
handful of communities. The concept caught on in the 1980s, before
mushrooming in the 1990s.

Isolated studies have shown success with individual programs. For instance,
in Galesburg, Ill., only 10 percent of the youths who go through the teen
court program are rearrested, compared with more than 75 percent of the
area's juvenile court offenders.

"People are tired of building new prisons," said Lolita Junk, coordinator
of teen courts in Galesburg. Established in 1995, the program is believed
to be the first and the largest teen court in Illinois. "People here
decided to intervene, to teach kids to be responsible and accountable early."

In a library decorated with Oprah Winfrey and Michael Bolton "Read Books"
posters, a jury at Century High School in Santa Ana, Calif., questioned a
15-year-old boy who admitted stealing three CD players from a store with
his friends.

"What were you thinking?" asked a female juror.

"I wasn't thinking anything," the boy said.

"Will you steal again?" asked another female juror.

"No, I don't want to go through this again," said the boy, who eventually
was ordered to serve 40 hours of community service, write a two-page letter
of apology to the store owner and serve on a future teen court jury.

Teen courts, according to experts, seem to have secondary benefits for the
youths who participate as jurors, defense lawyers and bailiffs. The
program, the experts say, exposes students to the criminal justice system
while illustrating the consequences of unlawful behavior. "It was neat to
be able to change someone's way of thinking and direction," said Morgan
Russell, 17, a juror on one of the cases at Century High School who is
going to be a senior at Pacific Coast High School in Tustin, Calif.

Seeing what could happen, she said, "would make me think twice" about
getting into trouble.