NCJ Number
244236
Date Published
2012
Length
30 pages
Annotation
Findings and methodology are presented for an evaluation of the District of Columbia's Time Dollar Youth Court (TDYC), which is a juvenile diversion program designed for first-time non-violent offenders, with the jury consisting of juvenile offenders who are performing jury service as part of their sentence.
Abstract
A sample of the 2009-2010 TDYC cohort was used to examine the association between peer jury service and concepts of life-skills, community involvement, aspirations for the future, and perceptions of TDYC. The strongest associations were found in the life-skills area. Associations were somewhat less strong in the area of community involvement. This could be due to the decline in TDYC's community service requirement. Other statistically significant improvements were in academics and learning, communications, and social competency. Also statistically significant were goal setting and goal achievement, problem solving, decisionmaking, new friends from community involvement, being mentored, and mentoring others. Self-esteem, leadership in a community organization, and belief in the importance of their community were not statistically significant. Although being assigned to jury duty in the TDYC was initially viewed as a sanction for their criminal offense, the peer jurors generally had positive feelings about their experience as jurors. This evaluation collected and analyzed data on 882 TDYC peer jurors who were in the program between July 1, 2009, and June 30, 2010. A mixture of methods was used in the evaluation, including qualitative, quantitative, linguistic, and sentiment analysis. A multi-stage process with a convenience sample was used. This included self-administered surveys and interviews. Relationships between participation as a juror in TDYC and life-skills, community involvement, aspirations for the future, and participants' perception of jury service were examined. 12 tables