UROP Project

Juvenile justice, theraputic justice, teen court

Research Mentor: Professor Alexandra Cockerham,
Department, College, Affiliation: Interdisciplinary Social Science, Social Sciences and Public Policy
Contact Email: amg08k@fsu.edu
Research Assistant Supervisor (if different from mentor): Dr. James Cockerham
Research Assistant Supervisor Email: jmc09m@fsu.edu
Faculty Collaborators: Prof. Radha Modi
Faculty Collaborators Email: rmodi@fsu.edu

Looking for Research Assistants: No
Number of Research Assistants: 3
Relevant Majors: Open to all majors
Project Location: On FSU Main Campus
Research Assistant Transportation Required:
Remote or In-person: Partially Remote
Approximate Weekly Hours: 5,
Roundtable Times and Zoom Link: Not participating in the Roundtable

Project Description

Students will have the opportunity to join in on the research process that is the result of a grant with the North Carolina Department of Public Safety, Division of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. This research aims 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. 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 project we sent out surveys to all 100 counties in North Carolina to learn more about the structure of teen court and juvenile justice in each county. The survey results provide unique insight into the juvenile justice system in North Carolina.

Research Tasks: We envision that our research assistant would help work on more of the qualitative components of this project. In addition to conducting a handful of site visits, observations and interviews, we also sent a survey out to each of the 68 teen courts in North Carolina. This allowed 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. W also sent 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 review the survey results from across North Carolina. This would involve reviewing relevant literature, compiling descriptive information regarding the teen courts in North Carolina and detailing patterns observed.

Specific ideas below:
1. Literature review on therapeutic justice
2. Survey Results Analysis-- Students will review the survey results from the teen court project. They will summarize general impressions of the teen court landscape and/or any patterns observed across counties in the way that teen court operates.
3. Site Visit Analysis- students will review site visit notes to better understand teen court operations in specific teen courts.
4. Manuscript Editing-- Students will review the manuscript for publication and provide edits.

Skills that research assistant(s) may need: Required- ability to read academic articles, ability to summarize descriptive statistical information