Teaching Young People About the Legal System

Interested in interactive online tools for teaching young people about the legal system? I've got two good ones, thanks to the Changing the Court blog. 

• Judges, Courts, and the Law was developed by the Judicial Council of California. I haven't looked at all of it, but I checked out two very interesting animated sections on free speech generally and then a specific application: "The T-Shirt Game," in which users decide whether students would or should be allowed by school administrators to wear specific t-shirts with potentially offensive language or images.

• On Judge for Yourself, from the British National Probation Service, the user gets to act as the probation officer for four offenders (one is a teenager). You can hear the story of each person's offense, a little bit about his or her background, interview the offender (you only get to ask 5 questions), and get advice from the probation officer. Though actors are used, the case histories are real. [If you're running an older machine or have a weak graphics card, you may have trouble getting this site to run.]

Both of these are (perhaps inevitably) slightly hokey, which might be hard to get past with some teens. But they're both well thought-out, entertaining, and present useful information that could provoke interesting discussions and reflection.

Teaching teens and their families about the legal system is critical, but inadequate information abounds. See this post for a useful discussion of the information gap and suggestions for closing it.