Sentence completion and recidivism among juveniles referred to teen courts

This study focuses on sentence completion and recidivism of juveniles refer red to teen courts for disposition by their peers as an alternative to judi cial sentencing. More than 70 percent of the referrals completed their sent ences, and just less than a third recidivated over a 1-year follow-up. In m ultivariate models, sentence completion was significantly less likely among persons sentenced to community service, and recidivism was significantly h igher among juveniles with prior records and those who were sentenced to cu rfews. The findings imply the need for teen courts to be guided by sound pr ogram development efforts that are based on research so that they may circu mvent the panacea phenomenon.