A network for co-production practitioners
Youth Court is diversion! Youth Court provides alternative sentencing to first-time juvenile offenders in the District of Columbia and serves as a unique pre-petition diversion program for non-violent offenders. The goal of TDYC is to divert first-time youthful offenders, ages 13–17, away from the juvenile justice system and provide a meaningful alternative to the traditional adjudicatory format in juvenile cases.
Youth Court is innovative! Youth Court has a fourteen year history of providing successful peer-to-peer services to youth and is recognized as one of the largest youth courts in the nation.
Youth Court is success! All youth who were diverted to Youth Court since January 2003, whether successful or unsuccessful, have only an 11% re-arrest rate one year from the date of original arrest.
Youth Court is justice! Youth Court enlists young people in creating a new kind of juvenile justice where youth juries have the power to impose a sentence on offenders and where non-violent youth can avoid formal prosecution for their offense by carrying out the sentence imposed by their peers.
Each Saturday at Youth Court, youth respondents are brought to court and judged by a jury of their peers. Youth jurors question a respondent about what led to their arrest and what activities and situations may have contributed to the problem. Jurors listen intently to both the respondent and family for indications that the young person:
Since there are no rules of evidence in Youth Court, any question or information that the jury sees as critical to further understand the situation is permissible. The jurors also ask questions of the respondent’s parent or guardian, giving them the opportunity to express their feelings.
At the close of each hearing, the peer jury decides which types of activities the respondent must participate in and complete to satisfy the offense, promoting a sense of responsibility and commitment to a better life for themselves and those around them.
Each Youth Court respondent may be required to:
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