Peer Pressure

An armed police bailiff guards the proceedings and the black-robed judge is “your honour”. He addresses the jury as “ladies and gentlemen” but there any resemblance to an orthodox American court ends. These jurors are not even voting citizens. They are fellow juvenile miscreants who judge their contemporaries in a unique youth court in San Francisco aimed at halting delinquency at its first manifestation. It is attracting widespread notice for its astonishing success; a re-offending rate of only five per cent compared with over a third for the mainstream juvenile system.

To a foreign visitor, the youth court's replacement of a punishing judge with a true jury of peers is most intriguing in an authoritarian US legal system that jails more of its citizens than any other industrialised nation. The court handles only minor offences: drinking alcohol, vandalism, graffiti, and battery. The most common is petty theft, often shop-lifting. As all offences have been admitted beforehand, there is no trial. Names are withheld and schools concealed to avoid factionalism and possible gang identification.

On this Wednesday evening, 42 youngsters file in for jury service in a court normally used for civil litigation. As the hearing begins, the jurors cast knowing looks at the first defendant, whom we will call John. Like him they are admitted offenders. Indeed, sitting on these juries is part of their rehabilitation. After John admitted his offence, he and his parents agreed to co-operate with the court to avoid the harsher route through the juvenile court system. John, nearly 17, has shoplifted two Walkmans and three cartons of cigarettes from a discount store. The police report says he was with his mother when he concealed the items in specially tapered baggy trousers. John says that it was the first time he had stolen and that the goods were intended as Christmas presents to save money. Then he awaits jurors’ questions.

They are hard and shrewd. The judge tells me afterwards that the jurors are tougher on defendants than adults would be. One boy does not believe that it was John’s first time because he went about it too professionally. A girl asks sarcastically “How would your friend feel about your Christmas present if he was busted for receiving stolen goods?” Another juror puts a question encouraged by the counsellors, “How did your offence affect the community?”

The jury retires to private deliberations, while another panel takes its place to deliberate on another case. Later John’s jury returns with а sentence. John receives 85 hours of compulsory community work (which will probably include jury duty) plus 400-word apologies to the store and his mother. He must also write 850 words on “thinking before acting” and another 850 on the consequences of stealing. The programme requires that parents attend counseling, and the director of the scheme has received grateful letters from parents marveling at how family had improved as a result of being forced to examine what was wrong in their relationship with their children.

The success rate of the programme is attributed to the children being involved in the process; the offenders understand why they need to be rehabilitated. The problem with the regular juvenile system is that by the time they get to court they may have broken the law several times.

The session ends with a harangue from the formidable police supervisor; a juror has disrespected the court with inappropriate clothes. Her peers add ten extra community hours on her then and there. Tough justice, juvenile style.

1. What do you think the advantages and disadvantages of the Youth Court are?