143 Parental Involvement in Restorative Justice Programs: Examining Salt Lake Peer Court

Faculty Mentor: Rebecca Owen (Sociology, University of Utah)

Violence among youth in the United States has been a growing source of concern since the 1990s, when upticks in school-based homicide and mass-shootings led to school boards and government leaders developing stringent discipline policies in education (Rodríguez Ruiz 2017). Most American families felt that these new policies made schools safer and prevented violent crime, but some students experienced an opposite effect (Rodríguez Ruiz 2017). By the early 2000s, social scientists began questioning the effectiveness of harsh punitive discipline methods, connecting their use to increased youth contact with the juvenile justice system. Especially concerning has been disproportionate juvenile justice contact for disabled youth and youth of color (Hirschfield 2018). These findings led to an investigation of the role of education in youth incarceration, which was soon termed the school-to-prison pipeline. Alternative methods of justice have been considered to mitigate the impact of punitive discipline in schools, particularly diversion programs and restorative justice models.

Teen courts quickly became a popular form of diversion to address crime in youth. In Salt Lake City, Utah, a local high school partnered with Salt Lake’s Capitol Hill Community Council to establish Salt Lake Peer Court (SLPC) in 1993. The program operates using a restorative justice model, which emphasizes the importance of skill building, accountability, and community connection for at-risk youth (Salt Lake Peer Court 2022). Though diversion programs and restorative justice models have become established as an alternative to the juvenile justice system for youth, research has found mixed results in their ability to prevent youth—especially marginalized youth—from entering the school-to-prison pipeline, (DeFosset et al. 2017; Kretschmar et al. 2018; Schwalbe et al. 2012). Though previous research on SLPC has found some protective effects of the program for youth of color (Muñoz et al. 2022), there is still much to learn about the effectiveness of the program for youth in Salt Lake.

One previously unstudied aspect of SLPC, which may give insight on the program’s success, is the impact of parental involvement. The participation of a parent or legal guardian is required for youth to participate in SLPC, and the quality of parent participation may have an impact on youth success in the program. Research on programs like SLPC shows a promising link between family-involved sentencing and youth success.

Research is difficult to generalize, however, due to variations across program structures and approaches. Family involvement may influence the effectiveness of SLPC for youth participants, but it is necessary to research SLPC individually to determine the role of families on youth success. Using a multi-method design, this study aims to understand the factors which influence parental involvement in SLPC. This was achieved through an analysis of transcripts from previously conducted interviews with SLPC stakeholders, supplemented by observations of SLPC court hearings in the 2022-2023 school year. Factors such as buy-in, parenting style, structural barriers, and socioeconomic barriers were found to influence parental involvement in SLPC, in part by creating strain which could disincentivize participation. These factors may be considered by SLPC and other youth court programs when developing policies and procedures related to parental involvement.

Parents’ involvement in SLPC seemed to be impacted by a combination of factors. It was much more likely for parents with poor participation in the program to have a permissive parenting style, with strong emotional bonds to their child but less consistency in establishing boundaries, supervision, and discipline (Baumrind 2005; Maccoby and Martin 1983). It was also much more common for parents who experienced both structural barriers within SLPC, such as problems with communication and scheduling, and socioeconomic barriers outside of the program, such as a lack of access to transportation, to participate less. Importantly, the combination of a permissive parenting style, structural barriers, and socioeconomic barriers seemed most likely to be associated with poor participation.

The quality of parents’ participation had a clear effect on the success of their referred children. At the time of the study, none of the referred youth whose parents had poor participation had graduated. These findings underscore the importance of parent participation in SLPC. Without consistent parent participation, it can be very difficult to ensure that youth come to return hearings, complete their disposition contracts, and stay in contact with their youth mentors. Many of these cases end up closed, because parents either stop responding to communication or stop attending return hearings. In short, parents are a key aspect of a referred youth’s support system; completing the program without them would be incredibly difficult.

The findings from this study seem to suggest three important conclusions; first, poor participation may be associated with parenting style, especially permissive parenting styles. Second, families who experience socioeconomic barriers to participating in SLPC are at greatest risk of having poor parent participation, especially if they also experience structural barriers during their time in the program. Finally, poor parent participation seems to be associated with poor outcomes for referred cases. Therefore, addressing the barriers associated with parenting style and external barriers may improve parent participation, as well as outcomes for referred youth. These findings may have implications on SLPC policies and operations, which could be adjusted to improve accessibility for permissive parents and parents experiencing socioeconomic barriers. Future studies could include interviews with parents to broaden researchers’ understanding of their involvement; they could also include a larger sample size, to represent a broader sample of parenting styles. This could improve overall understandings of the effectiveness of restorative justice and diversion programs like SLPC.

Baumrind, Diana. 2005. “Patterns of Parental Authority and Adolescent Autonomy.” New Directions for Child & Adolescent Development 2005(108):61–69.

DeFosset, Amelia R., Taylor S. Schooley, Laura S. Abrams, Tony Kuo, and Lauren N. Gase. 2017. “Describing Theoretical Underpinnings in Juvenile Justice Diversion: A Case Study Explicating Teen Court Program Theory to Guide Research and Practice.” Children & Youth Services Review 73:419–29.

Hirschfield, Paul J. 2018. “The Role of Schools in Sustaining Juvenile Justice System Inequality.” The Future of Children 28(1):11–35. doi: 10.1353/foc.2018.0001.

Kretschmar, Jeff M., Krystel Tossone, Fredrick Butcher, and Barbara Marsh. 2018. “Examining the Impact of a Juvenile Justice Diversion Program for Youth with Behavioral Health Concerns on Early Adulthood Recidivism.” Children and Youth Services Review 91:168–76. doi: 10.1016/j.childyouth.2018.06.010.

Maccoby, Eleanor, and John Martin. 1983. “Socialization in the Context of the Family: Parent-Child Interaction.” in Handbook of Child Psychology:. Vol. 4: Socialization, Personality, and Social Development. New York: Wiley.

Muñoz, Ed A., Rebecca Y. Owen, Moisés Próspero, and Daniel E. Adkins. 2022. “Diversion and Restorative Justice: Salt Lake Peer Court Disrupting Disproportionate Minority Contact?” Sociology of Race and Ethnicity 8(2):284–300. doi: 10.1177/23326492221078860.

Rodríguez Ruiz, Rocío. 2017. “School-to-Prison Pipeline: An Evaluation of Zero Tolerance Policies and Their Alternatives.” Houston Law Review 54(3):803–37.

Salt Lake Peer Court. 2022. “Salt Lake Peer Court.” Retrieved April 25, 2023 (https://www.saltlakepeercourt.org). Schwalbe, Craig S., Robin E. Gearing, Michael J. MacKenzie, Kathryne B. Brewer, and Rawan Ibrahim. 2012. “A Meta- Analysis of Experimental Studies of Diversion Programs for Juvenile Offenders.” Clinical Psychology Review 32(1):26–33.