Research Mentor Information
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Primary Research Mentor Name: Alexandra Cockerham
Research Mentor Preferred Pronouns: {Empty}
When potential research assistants are reaching out via email, what is your preferred honorific?: Dr. 
Contact Email (FSU Email if affiliated): amg08k@fsu.edu
Position Title: Faculty
FSU College (if applicable): Social Sciences and Public Policy
FSU Department or Non-FSU Organization Affiliation: Interdisciplinary Social Science
Headshot (optional): https://cre.fsu.edu/system/files/webform/urop_project_proposal_portal/8496/Cockerham%20ISS%20Headshot.jpg

Additional Research Mentor(s)
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Research Assistant Supervisor (if different from above): {Empty}
Research Assistant Supervisor Preferred Pronouns: {Empty}
Research Assistant Supervisor Preferred Honorific?: {Empty}
Contact Email (FSU Email if affiliated): {Empty}
Name of Other Faculty/Collaborator(s) (if applicable): James Cockerham
Other Faculty/Collaborator(s) Preferred Pronouns: {Empty}
Other Faculty/Collaborator(s) Preferred Honorific?: Dr.
Contact Email (FSU Email if affiliated): james.cockerham@montreat.edu

Overall Project Details
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Title of the Project: Assessing the Impact of North Carolina Teen Court on Recidivism
Project Keywords: juvenile justice, recidivism, criminal justice
Are you currently looking for research assistants?: No
Number of Research Assistants Needed : 2
Relevant Research Assistant Major(s):
Open to all majors

Project Location:: On FSU Main Campus
If the project location is off campus, does the research assistant(s) need to provide their own transportation?: {Empty}
Please select the choice that most accurately describes your expectations for the research assistant(s):: Fully Remote
Approximately how many hours a week would the research assistant(s) need to work?: 5
Roughly what time frame do you expect research assistant(s) to work?: Flexible schedule (Combination of business and outside of business. TBD between student and research mentor.)
Overall Research Project Description:
An interdisciplinary team of scholars are working with the North Carolina Department of Public Safety, Division of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention to determine the effects of teen courts on recidivism in North Carolina. Teen courts are a diversion program serving as an alternative to processing juveniles through the traditional justice system. Teen courts are aimed at providing the opportunity for reform and prevent the stigma of adult adjudications, allowing youth to move past their encounter with the juvenile justice system (Nellis, 2011) . Teen courts are thought to help reduce recidivism by connecting the juvenile more directly to their crime. Specifically, the teen court process is seen as beneficial, because the offender is given the opportunity to observe directly how their behavior impacted the victim both through victim impact statements and at the conclusion of the hearing when the judge addresses the offender (Stickle et al., 2008). Most teen court sanctions are designed to go beyond simply punishing the offender, encouraging juveniles to restore part of the damages their behavior caused to the community (Butts et al., 2002) . 

In this analysis we are interested in examining the effect of teen court programs in North Carolina on recidivism. Given the nature of teen courts, specifically their unique ability to connect offending juveniles to their crime and the comprehensive nature of including the youth’s parents, peers, and community in the sentencing process, we believe that this is a unique diversion source that will have reductionary effects on an at-risk youth’s propensity to enter and a court involved youth’s propensity to re-enter the system.

In this analysis, we focus the scope of our research on the juvenile justice system in North Carolina, specifically examining the effects of the teen court program on recidivism. Within North Carolina, there are 68 counties that are served by teen court and 32 that are not. Within these 68 counties, in 2022 there were 3,400 youth served by teen court and 14,000 youth that went through the traditional justice processing and 4,300 youth that were processed via diversion plans or contracts. 

Research Tasks:
This research will contain both a quantitative and qualitative component. For the quantitative analysis, we will compare juvenile offenders that completed teen court with those that did not participate in the teen court program across the same time period among youth that live in the 68 counties where teen court is offered as a diversion alternative. 

We envision that our research assistant would help work on more of the qualitative components of this project. We need to gather descriptive information that could help us learn more about the structure of teen courts in North Carolina. In addition to conducting a handful of site visits, observations and interviews, we will also send a survey out to each of the 68 teen courts in North Carolina. This will allow us to gather information on the type of teen court model that is used (i.e, adult judge model, youth judge model, mixed models, peer jury model, youth tribunal, etc.) and types of sentencing that are typically handed out. We will also send a survey to the 32 counties that do not use teen court as an option to learn more information about their best practices with regard to options for diverting youth from the traditional justice system. 

We hope that our UROP research assistant would help us design the surveys that will be sent out across North Carolina. This would involve reviewing relevant literature, compiling descriptive information about the counties that offer teen court and those that do not, and designing and editing survey questions that will be sent across counties. Depending on when we get the survey results, we may also have our research assistant code the responses and draft initial interpretations of the results. There may also be opportunities for proof-reading and reference searching as we begin writing the research brief.

This project involves a partnership between academics from different disciplines and state of North Carolina agencies. We will also have occasional meetings with the team and hope that our research assistant would sit in on the meetings. This would allow our research assistants to learn more about our research partnership. 

Skills that research assistant(s) may need::
Required: Professionalism and self motivation

Mentoring Philosophy:
During my time as a graduate student, I was blessed with several mentors that changed my life. They exposed me to opportunities and ideas that I never would have thought about for myself. I am passionate about paying this forward to students. I believe that knowledge and research in particular opens up opportunities. You never know when a new idea can change someone's trajectory.  As a faculty mentor I would enjoy the opportunity to incorporate students into my research and encourage them to learn skills that will take them beyond the classroom. 

Please provide a link to your publications, a video clip, or a website for your research project (if applicable):: https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/Z2NAM
Please add any additional information here (if applicable)::
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UROP Program Elements
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Mentor Handbook, FAQs, and Communication: Yes
UROP Performance Evaluation: Yes
Materials Grant: Yes
UROP Poster Presentation: Yes

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Year: 2023
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