What is significant about youth court is that the attorneys, jurors and even the judges are themselves adolescents and many times former defendants (Butts, Hoffman & Buck, 1999). The foundational premise or ideology behind youth courts is that the youth's judgment from their peer cohorts may be more convincing and in the long run beneficial than judgment handed down by officials and adults in the judicial system. Because many times the participants in youth court as jurors, attorneys and judges have been through the system, the sanctions handed down are frequently stiffer than what a defendant would have received had they gone through more formalized proceedings (Butt, Hoffman & Buck, 1999). In many ways, those who have gone through the system use youth court and the sanctions that follow as a 'wake-up call' to the first time offender.

One of the concerns expressed by researchers in the field of juvenile...
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