Maricopa Council Teen Court

Maricopa Council Teen Court – City council delayed any decision regarding the operation of a teen court in Maricopa for a couple weeks to do more research. No 21 Jump Street Kiddie Court just yet.

Maricopa Council Teen Court

Now, Pinal County has operated Teen Court and even ran such a court for five years, until deciding to discontinue the program, but just in Maricopa. They claim that they are redirecting their resources to post-adjudication juvenile support.

Teen court is a diversion program. Instead of kids 8-17 creating a permanent criminal record, which can follow them into adulthood, they’re sentenced by their peers, real 21 Jump Street vibe. These are the consequence options: mandatory jury duty, tutoring, apology letters, essays, community service, behavioral treatment classes or participation on the victim impact panel.

If the teens who receive their consequence don’t complete it, then they’re given a couple times to complete it before being referred back to the police department and go through juvenile court.

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Many community members have reached out in support of a move to continue this court, so she reached out to various people. Jeffery Traversino, local attorney with Traversino Law PLLC, recently moved to Maricopa and contacted Councilwoman Liermann to offer his insight. In another state, he was involved with teen court. 

“He said, ‘How can I help? What can we do to make sure that our youth in Maricopa have the option of teen court?,'” she recalled.

Angel Raymond, another local attorney with A.A. Raymond Law, along with Traversino volunteered their time to support the program.

A few youth volunteers, after six hours of practice, spoke about what teen court is and how it benefits the community at Tuesday’s meeting.

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Volunteers need to be 12-18 years old, understand confidentiality, committed to helping others and have a desire to make a difference in the community when they join. Youth volunteers serve as judge, attorneys, jury members, court clerks and bailiffs. Respondents need to admit to their charges to participate in the court. This court isn’t determining innocence or guilt.

Maricopa Council Teen Court

Within this last school year, over 40 Maricopa teens were referred to the Pinal County Juvenile Delinquency Court for misdemeanor offenses, which teen court could have handled.  

These respondents have the opportunity to develop healthy relationships and bonds with the student resource officers, teen volunteers and the community. This reduces being a repeat offender and promotes law abiding behavior. 

Maricopa has over 25% of Pinal County’s juvenile delinquency defendants, teens that could have been helped.  And, teen court is 100% volunteer-based, meaning it doesn’t cost the city any money to operate.

Traversino said court is held at the Pinal County Courthouse for now, but unsure where it will be held in the future. However, they’re flexible about location. Current teen volunteers can take cases starting next year, assisted by licensed local attorneys and other volunteers. 

They’re asking to make it a city sponsored program enabling them to use a city space to hold court every Thursday from 4-6 p.m., accept referrals from Maricopa Unified School District for truancy and others that cause out of school suspension and making it official for membership in the Arizona Teen Court Association and the National Court Association.

Traversino said it keeps teens out of the criminal justice system, which causes the likelihood of them offending again to “increase dramatically.” See, in Arizona, those who go through teen court are 9% likely to re-offend, compared to 15% in the juvenile justice system. Out of the 359 referrals Pinal County Juvenile Court Services received, 26% were from Maricopa. Half those cases were teen court eligible, however, teen court wasn’t available this year. 

Traversino said it benefits respondents by providing positive social support, a clean record, holds juvenile offenders accountable, early intervention/prevention, keeps them in school, promotes a healthy attitude towards authority and takes away the fear of dealing with the court system.

It benefits youth volunteers and the community by promoting positive youth development, volunteer hours for graduation, positive social support, builds ties between the youth and community, gives youth an opportunity to participate in decision making, educates youth on the judicial and legal system, promotes a healthy attitude towards authority and takes away the fear of dealing with the court system.

Liermann said Be Awesome Youth Coalition agreed to partner with teen court to provide family classes if the jury decides it’s an appropriate consequence. 

“Being able to work with Be Awesome Youth Coalition is a really amazing opportunity because a lot of times these kiddos are going through other things,” Raymond said. “We don’t know what other issues are happening behind the scenes, so having more resources available and community partnership to identify those needs, we’re just gonna be able to be in a much better position to set these kids on the right path.”

Maricopa Council Teen Court

City Manager Rick Horst suggested waiting two weeks to research and clarify certain aspects for operating teen court, doing the “full due diligence.”

In the new court building, Horst doesn’t foresee an issue having teen court held there. However, it’s not possible to use the council chambers at City Hall unless policies are changed.

Mayor Nancy Smith asked to table this discussion to allow time to look closer at what needs to be done to operate teen court.

“I love that you say there’s no cost involved, but there is,” she said. “It comes in the form of liability, form of space. Does it really apply more responsibility to our SROs, to our prosecutors? So I think we need to look at that. We also have a new judge coming, so I’d like to have you engage with that new judge as well.”