Youth on trial

A new scheme aims to create courts in which youngsters will be tried by their peers. But what do teenagers themselves think of the plan?

Teenagers, as every parent of one knows, tend to take a lot more notice of other young people than they do of adults. So what could be more sensible than the idea of young offenders being brought before a court of their peers, to be judged and sentenced? Details of the radical plan, which was pioneered in New York and now looks set to be copied here, and which will be piloted in Liverpool over the next two years, are still to be finalised. But it is likely that youngsters aged between 14 and 17 will be asked to participate in various aspects of the trials of other youngsters of a similar age, who are accused of minor criminal offences.

Young people could be asked to sit on some kind of teenage jury, or they could be trained to sit with a judge, or asked to give advice before sentence is passed on another youngster. The process is designed to instil in young people some respect for the legal system.

The inspiration for the scheme is the Red Hook justice centre in Brooklyn, New York, where teenagers from a range of backgrounds are chosen as jurors, are sometimes appointed to act as judge, and may even perform the role of counsel to accused youngsters. British government ministers and officials have visited the project, and the UK Department of Constitutional Affairs, which oversees the courts, is now poised to write the small print for the Liverpool project, which should be up and running by the end of the year.

So what do young people themselves think of the idea? James Browning, 15, from south London, says the crucial point is that youngsters serving on a jury would understand the context of other young people's misdemeanours. "It's all about feelings — they would understand where they were coming from," he says. "That's really important, even though you'd have to make sure it didn't mean they identified too closely with what was going on, so they were too soft on people."

James says he would probably be prepared to sit on a teenage jury, but points out that not all youngsters would want to - some might fear a gang backlash, while others might just feel uncomfortable about the idea of sitting in judgment on others their own age.

Phillipe Chiarella, 17, who sits in the UK youth parliament, believes that any scheme that seeks to give young people experience of a process where their views are under-represented is a good one.

"At the moment I think a lot of youngsters have this view that the police and the courts are against us — that we're not understood and that the court process is a completely alienating experience," he says. "There's this idea that police officers and lawyers and judges couldn't possibly understand what it's like to be us because being young was all too long ago for them, that they've forgotten what it was like and consequently what they say is irrelevant.
"What this scheme would do is put young people in touch with the process because those criticisms would no longer be valid. But what would be very important is making sure that young people could make informed decisions. There would have to be a lot of training so it is clear that a crime is still a crime — that it's one thing to identify with the young person who is accused and another to say they did nothing wrong.
"I would certainly be willing to get involved with something like this," Phillipe adds. "I feel very strongly that the best way to change a system is from within, and if young people could be more involved in the legal system, we would all see it as more accessible."

Milly Picton, 15, who lives in Kingston-upon-Thames, agrees that teen courts are a good idea. "What would be most important is for young people to know they really could make a difference, that it wasn't just about paying lip service to the idea of involving us," she says. "There are lots of schemes that say they are about listening to us, but in practice nothing changes.
"One plus I can see is that, at the moment, most young people never see the inside of a court and don't know anything about what happens there unless they're accused of an offence. Under this scheme, a lot more of us would have a chance to get acquainted with the criminal justice system - some of us might even decide to go on to be lawyers, or in other ways become involved in the process. And, of course, we would find out what would happen to us if we ever got into trouble, so there might be a deterrent effect as well."

Annette Ankamah, 17, who works for Exposure, a charity designed to enable more young people to get access to the media, says she believes teenagers would be "more ashamed" to be brought before a court involv ing their peers. Despite that, though, she would be wary of a system that set young people up to judge other young people. "That wouldn't be a good thing because youngsters can be unsure and immature. And mood swings might affect their judgment and lead them to make bad decisions."

Another Exposure participant, 16-year-old Lionel Eddy, says that for him, a major advantage of the new plan would be to give youngsters broader experience of the legal system, which might encourage them to take up careers in law. "I think young people might be softer than adults because adults know more about crime than most young people," he says. "But I personally wouldn't be softer because more crime is committed on young people, and this would be a way to get our own back.
"But if I'd done something wrong I'd be more ashamed to be in front of adults than people my own age... though I'm not exactly sure why."

Sean Hanlon, 17, from Lanark shire, who is a member of the Scottish youth parliament, has been involved in drafting a policy document which called on the Scottish Executive to include teenagers on panels dealing with young offenders. In general, he believes the best way forward would be to open up the entire legal system to include young people from 14 upwards.
"I'd like to see young people who were deemed sufficiently mature and able recruited to serve on juries, regardless of the age of the person accused," he says. "I'd like to see mixed adult and young people's juries in both juvenile and adult courts. I think it could only be a good thing to get youngsters' voices heard in both arenas - everyone would benefit.
"A 16-year-old can bring skills and their personality to the judgment process just as a 30-year-old or a 50-year-old can," he adds.

Solicitor Liz Goldthorpe, chairwoman of the Association of Lawyers for Children, believes that the idea of peer justice has a lot of mileage. "We know young people are quite sensible about judging what's acceptable and what's unacceptable," she says. "We often think they're not as mature as they should be, but then we tend to discover that they are a lot more mature than we gave them credit for.
"My concern is that this idea would have to be worked out very carefully, and I would have worries about young people acting as advocates, because I think in that role they would need to have a very strong grasp of what the law requires, and I wouldn't want to see young people involved in the perpetration of injustice.
"What I would most like to see is a pilot scheme involving both children and adults. I think the biggest benefit would be in terms of hearing the voices of youngsters in the justice system - we've got a long way to go before we listen to them properly, and this would be a step in the right direction."

Jessica Gold, director of School Councils UK, says that schemes to involve young people in support and advocacy for pupils facing exclusion have been successful and could provide some kind of blueprint for the new court service. The crucial aspect of setting up a system of peer justice, she says, is in ensuring it is perceived as fair by the youngsters themselves: anything that was not would fail from the outset.

Joanna Moorhead
25 August 2004

http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,1290117,00.html

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