That is the focus our juvenile justice system needs to take. And that s what we re doing. We opened up our juvenile courts because a community cannot hold a juvenile accountable if it is kept in the dark about the extent of their offenses. We began teen courts. There s one in Montgomery County.
Teens sit in judgment of their peers, and they re often tougher than adult courts.
They force offenders to write out what they did, and why it was wrong. They also make them serve on the courts themselves, so they develop the habits of moral judgment. In a similar vein, we ve launched community conferencing. It got its start among the aborigines in Australia. The neighborhoods sit in judgment of a criminal.