Southeast High School teen court will have student offenders face a jury of their peers

The mock trial for a program that will change the course of discipline for students at Southeast High School is set for Wednesday.

The program, teen court, is designed to divert minors from the criminal justice system by allowing them to be judged for offenses by their peers.

Assistant U.S. Attorney and Southeast alum Sierra Senor Moore pitched the program to District 186 as a form of intervention. She said the goal is for incidents that are normally written up in a police report to go through teen court to avoid further action by the state attorney's juvenile division.

"Being charged with a crime as a juvenile is indicative of being charged as an adult so the current system is not working," Moore said. " We've seen that sending kids through the system doesn't prevent them from getting in trouble later in life but that they actually continue to re-offend and remain in the system as adults."

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Moore said with the teen court, offenders are given a rare second chance in maintaining a clean record. While students have the option to participate, the parent or guardian must agree before the process can move forward.

Theft, contraband, and bullying are among the range of offenses that can be taken to teen court. As the court process begins, the offense is read to the student. The next step follows if the student takes responsibility.

"Let's say the offense is that the student allegedly stole shoes from someone's locker. The jurors are not determining guilt or innocence so the student has to take responsibility, then they'll get to discuss with the jurors anything else important they think should be known,” Moore said.

In that discussion, the student offender can offer an explanation to support his or her case. Parents are also asked to be present during the session to offer insight.

“ A lot of times the reason why students commit offenses is because something else is going on. The student could probably tell the jurors why they took the shoes, what they planned to do with the money, or whatever information they feel would be valuable,” Moore said. “The point is to get a whole picture of the student offender as opposed to saying ‘oh they committed this offense let's punish them.’ We want to find the actual problem so we can provide a real remedy.”

Potential remedies include community service, apologies, a written essay, paying restitution, reading and reflecting on a certain book, serving on the court, and additional forms can be added by the jurors.

"In accordance with restorative justice, the purpose is not to punish the offender," Moore said. "The purpose is to make the victim whole again and prevent recidivism by the offender."

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During the hearing, no members of the public will be permitted for confidentiality purposes. Only the parent, the student offender, Moore, an administrator, a resource officer, and jurors will be involved.

At Wednesday's mock trial, jurors will be presented with a variety of scenarios to judge.

Meetings with potential jurors started in January and 13 junior year students were chosen. Alexis Wilhite said she got involved to make a difference.

"With everything happening in the news since 2016, I've always wanted to be a part of something that would create peace and balance in our community. When teen court came up I saw it as the perfect opportunity to get involved," she said.

Jason Wind, director of school support for the district, said the teen court model looks more proactive compared to most forms of discipline. He said suspension, detention and counseling were the only forms when he was in school but the teen court program allows for restorative practices to work.

"We're trying to move towards this model of restorative discipline in all of our dealings," Wind said. "We want to make it so that its not that we just send the students home and that's the end of it, but as the student is making their way back we're doing things to make things right with the people involved."

Wilhite said she thinks receiving judgment from peers will have a greater impact on student behavior because it's less authoritative.

"When a student is judging you it's more personal. The odds are everyone has been in a similar position at some point and the good thing about teen court is we're all teenagers who've all made mistakes. I think teenagers will understand that more than teachers will."

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Cody Triggs, the Southeast principal, agreed and said student participation is the program's strength. "Sometimes students take it more seriously when their peers are the ones who judge them."

Jurors have trained with Moore on concepts like confidentiality and bias, he added.

"I'm hoping that if we can get a student's perspective on how to change behavior on top of an adult's perspective, I think it'll build a culture in our school that will allow for the right choices to be made."

Trigg said the court will start up once an offense occurs and the student and parent agree to participate.

This article originally appeared on State Journal-Register: Teen court finds new home at Southeast High School in Springfield