Global Issues Resource Center announces the availability of the 1st Report to the Nation on Youth Courts and Teen Courts (MS Word doc). This national report documents significant highlights and events over a fifteen (15) year period of unprecedented and historic growth of this groundbreaking American juvenile justice prevention and intervention program that utilizes volunteer youth to help sentence their peers. 

The report begins in 1993, when fewer than seventy-five (75) local youth and teen courts existed in just about a dozen states.   The report concludes fifteen (15) years later in 2008, when more than a record 1,000 local communities in 48 states and the District of Columbia now operate these local juvenile justice programs.  Historic numbers of youth and adults are now involved, as more than 111,868 juvenile cases were referred to local youth and teen courts and more than 133,832 volunteers – to include both youth and adults who volunteered to help with the disposition and sentencing of these juvenile cases.   The report is written and researched by Scott Bernard Peterson and Jill Beres.