Teen Court-School Partnerships: Implications for Disproportionality in Discipline

Background and Purpose: Although the causes of disproportionality in exclusionary school discipline are complex, one solution is to introduce alternatives to suspensions and expulsions that discipline students while keeping them engaged in school. The Teen Court (TC) model represents one possible alternative. Rather than facing suspension/expulsion or involvement with the juvenile justice system, non-chronic juvenile offenders who participate in TC are given consequences by a youth jury made up of their peers. By providing an alternative process for determining consequences, TC programs represent an opportunity to hold youth responsible for their actions without relying on formal exclusionary punishments. However, due to a lack of research, it is unclear whether the TC (peer-derived) consequences are racially equitable (i.e., whether youth who participate in TC receive consequences of equal severity regardless of racial identification). The purpose of this presentation is two-fold: (1) to present a conceptual framework for understanding the potential role of TC in providing an alternative to traditional discipline measures and (2) to present the results of a study examining the racial equity in TC peer-derived consequences.

Methods: Using administrative data from a TC program in the Southwestern United States, 1,257 TC hearing records were included in the study. 59% of the sample identified as Hispanic/Latino; in terms of race, 72% identified as White, 15% Multiracial, 7% Black/African American, and 4% American Indian. Hierarchical regression analysis was used to examine the variables associated with the number of hours assigned by the peer jury. The first block of independent variables included demographics other than race (i.e., gender, age, and family income). Block two included offense-related variables (i.e., type of offense, whether the youth had a prior offense, and whether the current incident involved multiple charges). Block 3 included participants’ race and ethnicity.

Results: Results indicated that compared to non-Hispanic youth, on average Hispanic youth received 1.1 additional hours of consequences. In addition, compared to White youth, on average American Indian youth received 2.6 additional hours of consequences. On average, youth who identified as Multiracial received 1.3 fewer hours compared to their White counterparts. Examination of change in model R² values showed that offense-related variables explained the largest amount of variance in number of consequence hours (10.5%). Race/ethnicity explained 2.0% and other demographics explained 1.5% of the variance in number of consequence hours.

Conclusions and Implications: The study results suggest that TC jury decisions regarding consequences are influenced by a number of factors. First, the type of offense, whether the current incident involved multiple offenses, and whether the youth had a prior offense were most strongly associated with number of hours assigned by the peer jury. Race and ethnicity variables were also significantly associated with number of hours assigned. Overall, the results suggest that although the peer juries consider factors surrounding the offense, racial bias may influence the peer juror’s decision process. Therefore, TC juries may benefit from an intervention targeting racial bias. Additional research is needed to identify other factors that influence peer jury decisions.