Topic: State Youth Court Standards

Question: Does your state have youth court standards?

Responses from Coordinators:

Jeannie Lyles-Mitchell
Franklin County Teen Court
State Coordinator
100 Millcreek Park
Frankfort, KY 40601
jeaniel@mail.aoc.state.ky.us

Kentucky has 30 courts, but they are all administered from the Administrative Office of the Courts, which makes all courts uniform.

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Eugene Duran
Teen Court Coordinator
Valencia County Teen Court
P.O. Box 1209
Los Lunas, NM 87031
durane@ci.los-lunas.nm.us

Contact NMTCA assn. regarding standards. One Question: How do we know which variables in teen courts are effective? If we don't know that, then why are we already standardizing a process before obtaining this info? We are standardizing a program without having much of a clue as to what should be standardized!

A follow up to my prior response: Perhaps it would be best, since we don't know which elements of teen court are effective, to have at least a few programs in a state that operate differently than the others. This would allow for experimentation with certain teen court processes, thereby allowing for the ongoing betterment of all teen court programs. Which variables are the effective components of teen courts? I wish to add those elements but as yet cannot obtain any good data on this. One more question. Is it possible that certain elements are effective in a particular program that might not be as effective in another program due to local, political, social or any other reasons? If so then we best not standardize all teen courts into cookie sheet type programs.

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