The panel members also serve as peer mentors for the students, calling once a week to see how they're doing. Feeling that support is huge, Zeitlin says.

Salt Lake Peer Court gets about 300 referrals a year and Zeitlin trains roughly 120 volunteer students. It's a big jump from the 40 referrals and 15 volunteers they started with in 1993.

Nationally there are 1,300 youth, student, teen or peer courts with 41 courts in Utah.

Some courts get referrals from the local police departments, while many work through local school districts. Salt Lake Peer Court is a nonprofit group that's part of the Law Related Education Project under the Utah State Bar Association.

Taylor Ford, 18, has seen peer court benefit not only the lives of those she's reviewing, but also her own. She's resigning as president of Payson City Youth Court to focus on college, but will take four years of valuable service with her.

"I know that's probably cliche," she said. "But I like serving. I know that we're helping. I feel like we really are doing something for these kids."

Rather than ending up in juvenile court with fines and a record, the kids, around five a week, can come in and be reminded of what's right and wrong, she said.

Ford remembers back to an 8-year-old who came in for throwing cherries at a neighbor's house.

"(They are) sympathetic figures, but they still need to be told what's wrong," she said.

In Payson, the group assigns essays, community service hours or both.

"We're there to help," said Payson City Youth Court adviser Dennis Taylor. "That's what the whole design is, to let (the kids) know, 'Whoops, you made a mistake. Hey, we'll help you out.' "

E-mail: sisraelsen@desnews.com