PA lawmakers announce proposal to create school-based youth court

Two Pennsylvania lawmakers announced plans for a bill creating a pilot program to develop school-based youth court programs to improve restorative justice initiatives and disrupt the school-to-prison pipeline, reported the Pennsylvania Capital-Star.

Legislation expected from Sens. Timothy Kearney, D-Delaware, and John Kane, D-Chester, implements recommendations in a 2019 Joint State Government Commission report. The commission, directed to examine the possible benefits of the program, found that youth courts could address disciplinary problems and divert juvenile offenders from further violations through restorative justice.

An alternative to the traditional juvenile justice system and school disciplinary proceedings, youth courts are diversion programs where young people sentence their peers for minor crimes, offenses, or violations.

“Parents, school administrators, and educators have been raising concerns about the net effects of punitive student disciplinary policies that emphasize suspension, expulsion, and referrals [to] law enforcement,” the lawmakers wrote in a memo seeking legislative support. “Together, these policies and practices increase the likelihood that wayward youth will end up in the criminal justice system and reduce the chances that they will finish their education and become productive members of society.”

The initiatives are“ known to improve student-teacher relationships and school climate and provide additional educational benefits for participating students, including civic engagement, public speaking, conflict-resolution, and leadership skills,” Kearney and Kane wrote.

Their proposal would establish a five-year pilot program for school-based youth courts and establish a Youth Court Resource Center to help schools develop the program and implement other restorative justice measures.

“The pilot program will include annual grants to school entities — including public middle and high schools, public charter schools, school districts, or intermediate units — to begin youth courts, develop partnerships to aid youth courts, or evaluate program outcomes,” they wrote. “The pilot program will provide critical data to measure the efficacy of youth courts as a trauma-informed approach to improve disciplinary and educational outcomes for participating students.”

The National Association of Youth Courts identified the most common offenses addressed by youth courts as theft, vandalism, disorderly conduct, alcohol, assault, possession of marijuana, tobacco, curfew violations, and school disciplinary matters.

The U.S. Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention estimates that there are at least 1,000 youth courts in the United States.

The Senate directed the Joint State Government Commission to establish an advisory committee comprised of public educators, law enforcement, and youth court experts to study the program and its effectiveness as a reformative juvenile justice tool. 

The report consisted of eight recommendations, including encouraging a continuum of youth court programs, possible structures, guidance from the state Department of Education on implementation, continued research and reporting to assess productivity, and new funding to support the initiative.

In Pennsylvania, school-based student youth courts are the least common youth court programs, according to the 2019 report, which found that 11 school districts and two charter schools used the initiative for school discipline matters. Most Pennsylvania youth courts are juvenile justice-based programs. They operate at the county level and are supervised and supported by the county juvenile probation officer.

Other types of programs include community justice panels, truancy courts, and problem-solving youth courts.

To read more CLICK HERE

GateHouse: Restorative justice: What’s old is new again

Matthew T. Mangino
GateHouse News Service
May 3, 2013

There is an enormous amount of money spent on keeping our communities and neighborhoods safe.

Notwithstanding what individuals invest to keep themselves safe, public funds are expended to investigate and arrest suspects. Tax dollars are used to prosecute and, a significant majority of the time, defend those suspects.

Once convicted, the government shells out tax dollars to house, guard and care for literally millions of offenders. With budgets tight — more than half of police departments surveyed by the Police Executive Research Forum reported funding cuts in 2012—lawmakers are looking for alternatives to the traditional criminal justice model “arrest’em, try’em and lock’em up.”

One alternative gaining traction is Restorative Justice (RJ). RJ is a theory of justice that emphasizes repairing the harm caused by criminal behavior. It is best accomplished when the parties meet face-to-face to establish a plan of accountability and reconciliation. A meaningful RJ effort can transform people, relationships and communities.

RJ views criminal acts more comprehensively—rather than defining crime simply as law breaking; it recognizes that offenders harm victims, communities and even themselves.

In the U.K. there are a couple of ways to use RJ and each gives victims the chance to tell offenders the real impact of their crime, to get answers to questions and to receive an apology.

Through “conversations” the police resolve low-level crime without formal proceedings by holding, usually face-to-face, a conversation between offender and victim.

Through “conferences” everyone affected by an incident is invited to a structured meeting to decide what should be done to repair the harm. The offender meets the victim to apologize and help the victim recover from the crime.

A conference or conversation between offender and victims is not as novel as it seems. It wasn’t long ago when police officers walked the beat and became familiar faces in neighborhoods across the country. It wasn’t unusual for the beat officer to bring neighborhood families together, who were involved in a dispute, to collectively find a solution.

For instance, a couple of teenagers get into a scuffle. Arrest was not routine, instead the teens and their parents were summoned to the police station to work out their differences. Back in the day, it might have been considered common sense — today its restorative justice. Either way it’s the right thing to do.

Ted Wachtel, president of the International Institute for Restorative Practices, recently wrote in the Huffington Post, “Offenders, victims and their supporters all benefit from the free exchange of emotion that happens in a restorative justice conference. The conference process provides a way for all participants to discover their common humanity and move forward.”

Does RJ work? Dr. Lawrence W. Sherman and Dr. Heather Strang wrote in “Restorative Justice: the Evidence” that RJ reduces crime. In fact, RJ seems to reduce serious crime with specific discernible victims, more effectively than less serious crime. They also suggest that RJ works with violent crimes more effectively than property crimes — a significant finding.

Sixteen states have included RJ in their respective criminal or juvenile codes. The juvenile justice system in Pennsylvania is one of those states. Pennsylvania’s juvenile system is guided by a balanced and restorative justice philosophy. The measurable goals of Pennsylvania’s RJ include writing a letter of apology, completing meaningful community service, attending victim awareness panels, and providing restitution.

The most important measure of success is recidivism — did the juvenile offend again?

According to a 2009 report by The Center for Rural Pennsylvania, only about 19 percent of Pennsylvania’s juvenile offenders recidivated compared to 46 percent of adult offenders who committed a new crime or are returned to prison.

Matthew T. Mangino is of counsel with Luxenberg, Garbett, Kelly and George and the former district attorney for Lawrence County, Pa. You can read his blog at www.mattmangino.com and follow him on Twitter at @MatthewTMangino.

Visit Column

Restorative justice does work

The Youngstown Vindicator
Sunday, May 6, 2012

There is an enormous amount of money spent on keeping our communities and neighborhoods safe.

Notwithstanding what individuals spend to keep themselves safe, public funds are expended to investigate and arrest suspects. Public funds are used to prosecute and, a significant majority of the time, defend those suspects.

Once convicted, the government shells out tax dollars to house, guard and care for literally millions of offenders. With budgets tight — more than half of police departments surveyed by the Police Executive Research Forum reported funding cuts this year — lawmakers are looking for alternatives to the traditional criminal justice model “arrest’em, try’em and lock’em up.”

One alternative gaining traction is Restorative Justice. RJ is a theory of justice that emphasizes repairing the harm caused by criminal behavior. It is best accomplished when the parties meet face-to-face to establish a plan of accountability and reconciliation. A meaningful RJ effort can transform people, relationships and communities.

Comprehensive view

According to the Prison Fellowship International, Centre for Justice and Reconciliation, RJ is different from contemporary criminal justice in several ways. First, RJ views criminal acts more comprehensively — rather than defining crime simply as law breaking; it recognizes that offenders harm victims, communities and even themselves. Second, it brings more stakeholders to the table — rather than only giving key roles to law enforcement and the offender; it includes the victim and community. Finally, it measures success differently — rather than measuring merely convictions and punishment, it measures how much harm is repaired and, more importantly, how much harm is prevented.

Does RJ work? Dr. Lawrence W. Sherman and Dr. Heather Strang wrote in “Restorative Justice: the Evidence” that RJ seems to reduce serious crime, with specific discernible victims, more effectively than less serious crime. They also suggest that RJ works with violent crimes more effectively than property crimes. That finding is significant.

Sixteen states have included RJ in their respective criminal or juvenile codes. The juvenile justice system in Pennsylvania is one of those states. Pennsylvania’s juvenile system is guided by a balanced and restorative justice philosophy. The statute’s purpose clause specifically addresses the RJ model, “the protection of the public interest, to provide for children committing delinquent acts programs of supervision, care, and rehabilitation that provide balanced attention to the protection of the community, the imposition of accountability for offenses committed, and the development of competencies to enable children to become responsible and productive members of the community.”

Dr. Sandra Pavelka wrote in “Restorative Juvenile Justice and Policy: A National Assessment” that accountability is central to Pennsylvania’s RJ efforts. The accountability component requires the juvenile to commit to making the victim and community whole in the aftermath of an offense.

Core mission

Pennsylvania’s core mission is to insure that juveniles who become involved in the juvenile justice system leave the system more capable of being responsible and productive members of their communities. The measurable goals of Pennsylvania’s RJ include writing a letter of apology, completing meaningful community service, attending victim awareness panels, and providing restitution to the Crime Victims Compensation Fund.

The final measurable outcome is recidivism — did the juvenile offend again? According to a 2006 Pennsylvania Commission on Crime & Delinquency report, approximately 87 percent of Pennsylvania juvenile cases were closed without a new offense.

Restorative Justice approaches to juvenile crime will undoubtedly have an impact on future crime rates — fewer juvenile offenders committing crimes as adults. Can that success be replicated with adult offenders? The studies tell us yes: the criminal justice costs tell us we must.

Visit The Vindicator