Greene County to implement peer court for juveniles
Greene County may soon have another sentencing option for minor juvenile offenses – a peer court.
The county’s school districts are teaming up with the probation department and the community service department to establish a peer court, which will hand out sentences of community service and counseling programs to teens who get into minor trouble with the law.
“We’re going to do it and see how it works,” said Bret Moore, director of Greene County Community Service.
Moore said the peer court would be used for minor offenses such as truancy, fighting in school or alcohol or tobacco use in school. He said the case would have to be minor enough to warrant a sentence of just community service or counseling.
Once implemented, the peer court will be made up of a group of students from multiple Greene County districts serving as a jury, a judge, advocate for the accused, advocates for the accuser and a court coordinator.
When a minor juvenile case is filed with the magisterial district courts, the judges can refer the case to peer court, which allows the students to go through the court process and come up with a sentence for the first-time juvenile offender without giving the offender a juvenile record. Participation in peer court will be voluntary by the defendant, Moore said.
“If they complete the sentence given by the peer court, the student offender won’t have a record. That’s the key,” Moore said. “It’s a lot cheaper to educate than incarcerate.”
Moore said Senior Magisterial District Judge Jesse Cramer first approached him with the idea to implement the program. Cramer said he was interested in finding an “alternative sentence” for juveniles.
“In the criminal court system, we keep trying to reinvent the wheel,” Cramer said. “Everything’s based on monetary punishment. If you get into a shoving match in school, the fine could be $300 plus the court cost. Instead of doing that, we want to try to see why is there a problem.”
Cramer said if a student is having truancy, bullying issues or problems at home, it could lead to their getting in trouble with the law, but it is hoped this program would identify those issues early on.
The students selected for the peer court will most likely have an interest in law or criminal justice, Cramer said, and will benefit from the firsthand picture of how the system works.
“Hopefully it will provide a good learning experience for both the students in the peer court and the students who took a step over the line,” he said.
Cramer said “time will tell” if the program eventually will contribute to raising graduation rates.
“I hope it makes some lasting impression on a student who may be thinking about dropping out of school,” he said. “Maybe it will lead to a higher graduation rate or a better overall atmosphere at the school districts.”
Moore said he, in coordination with the school districts and Greene County probation, will come up with a monthly or bi-monthly schedule for trials, depending on the caseload. Each session will handle multiple cases and will take up about a morning’s worth of class time for the students. The trials will be held at a different school each time.
Moore said he hopes to get between eight and 10 students per school to have a big enough pool of students to maintain an unbiased peer court.
“For example, a student offender from West Greene will have a jury made up of students from other districts,” Moore said. “If there are any personal relationships with the defendant, the students would have to recuse themselves.”
West Greene Superintendent Brian Jackson said the students who will make up the peer court will participate in it as an extension of their civic, social studies or government classes. He said if districts select high school students from each grade, it makes the turnover easier from year to year.
“I’ve watched this program in Washington County, and I can tell you it has a positive effect on both sides,” Jackson said. “When they come in front of their peers, it’s a different atmosphere than being in front of a magistrate.”
So far, Waynesburg Central is the only high school that has not yet committed to participating in the peer court. Moore said the districts would pay only the cost of busing students to a different school once a month for the trials.
Greene County teachers who want to participate in the peer court will go through a training session Dec. 13 at Trinity High School in Washington County, followed by a training for the selected students Dec. 20.
Amanda Gallagher, chief juvenile probation officer for Washington County, said they’ve been doing peer court since 1996, and it’s been successful.
“This is a diversion program,” she said. “When you have a low-level offender, if you put them in the same program as a high-level offender, they’re more likely to recidivate.”
Gallagher said that last year, the Washington County peer court was able to dispose of 30 cases for first-time offenders, with only four of those offenders being referred back to the court for not completing their community service or another reason.
“Most of these kids we probably won’t see again because they won’t reoffend,” she said. “We don’t want to pull them into the system any more than they already are. We make sure we hammer home to them that they are being given this opportunity to not have a record.”