Pretrial Release and Diversion Programs

The criminal justice system has a branch for juvenile offenders. Established in the early twentieth century; it is the responsibility of this division to decide the fates of youthful offenders. This is administered by family court with support of social workers and family. With the increased number of youthful, violent offenders, many are being processed and sentenced as adults. Important issues such as culpability, severity of the crime, accountability, constitutional rights of the offenders and victims, and probability of rehabilitation,

Thesis: Release planning for convicted felons is a way to help avoid the various problems that are associated with rehabilitation following the release of convicted felons due to their: basic needs, adequate housing, seeking employment and furthering their education, healthcare and support systems.

Release of an accused pending trial on the accused’s written promise to appear at all required court proceedings is a mode of pretrial release known as the accused’s personal recognizance.

The Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD) Program was aimed to follow a rehabilitative justice perspective. This rehabilitative justice perspective is a “concept intended to meet the needs of the victims/offenders with the intent of having the community involved” (McCold, 1995). LEAD carries out this concept in three ways: it aids the police/ social services by creating a resource base, removes the offenders from society, and provides aid to the offender.

Jail diversion is a mental health platform explicitly premeditated to isolate and divert individuals with mental health, substance abuse disorders or both from the criminal justice system into a need-specific treatment in the mental health system. Specifically, the program provides linkages to community-based treatment and support services to assist the individual in reducing deviant behavior. For this reason, the individuals avoid arrests and spend a lesser period in jail. The effectiveness of the diversion program relies on various activities that involve the identification of the target group and a proper integration of the victim into the program. While there are many different types of jail diversion programs the accessibility to jail diversion programs are limited, due to the strict qualification guidelines set. In addition, the availability of appropriate mental health professionals is paramount to the efficiency of the program. It is a common belief that linking mentally ill offenders to Community-Based Services decrease their chances of recidivism and contact with security officers (Sirotich, 2009).

In America we have an Adversary System of Justice, which means that criminal trials proceed under the adversary theory of justice to arrive at the truth in a given case. One characteristic of this system is intensive cross-examination of both defense and prosecution witnesses. In a jury trial, it is for the jury, which observes these witnesses, to weigh the evidence and make the ultimate decision in every case—guilty or not guilty. However, not every case makes it to trial in fact, about 80% of defendants plead guilty allowing them to just be sentenced and not have to go through the whole process of a trial. Other cases are dropped, or dismissed if the prosecutor, or in some cases a grand jury, feels that there is insufficient evidence to carry on. Some defendants are sent to diversion programs, these individuals are often sent here because an official involved in the case believes that there is a better way to deal with a defendant than to prosecute them.

Parole eligibility is expanded to certain classes of nonviolent offenders. These parole eligibilities are expanded to include nonviolent offenders who were previously ineligible because of sentencing enhancements, such as selling drugs near a school. Allows nonviolent offenders who are otherwise ineligible for parole to petition the sentencing court for eligibility after serving 25 percent of their sentence. Mississippi implements a geriatric parole provision which initiates parole hearings for nonviolent offenders who are 60 years or older and have served at least 10 years in prison. They mandate that the Department of Corrections create case plans for all parole-eligible offenders at admission to ensure needed treatment and services are completed before parole review. Restricts parole hearings to cases in which offenders have failed to comply with their case plans or victims or local law enforcement officials have requested hearings, creating a more predictable rate for paroles granted. Probation is an alternative to incarceration. At the time of a trial, a judge has the sole authority to recommend probation for a defendant. Once someone

In the United States, over 90,000 juveniles are incarcerated in juvenile justice facilities. To house 90,000 juveniles, majority non-violent offenders, it costs the states roughly 5.7 billion dollars annually. “With states facing serious budgetary constraints, it is an opportune time or policymakers to consider ways to reduce juvenile justice spending that won’t compromise public safety.” In the effort to reduce juvenile justice costs, community-based programs known as pretrial diversion programs were implemented. Pretrial diversion programs did not only reduce funding costs, but benefited the juvenile as well. Pretrial diversion programs main objective is to rehabilitate juvenile offenders, which ultimately led to lower recidivism rates and safer communities. As a result of the benefits to all parties involved, today’s juvenile judicial system offers more juveniles the opportunity to attend these diversion programs; rather than proceed through traditional criminal justice processes. (Justice Policy Institution)

We assist the judges with pre-sentence reports that help influence the sentencing process. Not everyone is placed on probation. The more information a judge has on the defendant the better we can fashion a sentence that in theory is rehabilitative.

The Nonviolent Offender Rehabilitation Act: Prison Overcrowding, Parole, and Sentencing Reform, also known as Proposition 5, was a declined petition by Skaidra Smith-Heisters that proposed excellent and financial friendly ideas to decrease overcrowding in California prisons. These ideas should be applied to prisons across the nation. One of these ideas is to it substitute a “three-track drug treatment diversion program (Smith-Heisters, 2008)” in place of the previous used drug treatment programs in the nation. Before a nonviolent offender can be considered for parole, they must meet the requirements from the Nonviolent Offender Rehabilitation Act: Prison Overcrowding, Parole, and Sentencing Reform. These requirements are that they must have been put in custody for a drug offense or nonviolent offense, have not committed a violent felony or registered as a sex offender, have not committed a crime connecting them to a gang, and must finish program. The nonviolent offenders could go through the rehabilitation program for six months before being released on

Both jail and prison offer some type of early released programs, in this case probation and parole will briefly be discussed. Probation is a prison sentence that is suspended on the condition that the offender follow certain prescribed rules and commit no further crime (Seiter, 2008). Parole is similar to probation except that it is after a period of incarceration, which involved determinate and indeterminate sentencing (Seiter, 2008). The other types of prison sentencing include mandatory minimums, three-strike laws, and truth-in-sentencing (Wilson, 2001). The only difference is that a parole board allows convicts to serve the remainder of their term in society under supervision and strict limitations (Wilson, 2001). In summary both jails and prisons should strive to provide as much educational, health, and counseling opportunities as possible to reduce the likelihood of recidivism. Second, funding for the jail and prison systems will be briefly discussed.

There are many reasons why the courts or prosecutors would choose this option instead of taking the case to trial. The purpose in this program is to allow defendants to stay in the community to receive treatment or help and allow them to remain with their family. This also helps defendants be able to provide for their families and avoid being labeled as a criminal. It does not only help the defendants but it helps the courts, prosecutors, and jail systems. The courts benefits because it allows for more serious cases to be brought to trial and frees up money for those cases. It takes pressure off the prosecutors allowing them to focus on bigger more serious cases as well. This program benefits the jail and prison system by not overcrowding them. This is just one of the options for defendants to avoid going to jail or criminal charges in court. There are some people that believe this program is not fair or is not strict enough. There seem to be a lot of problems that are associated with pretrial publicity. Pretrial publicity can make it harder for the courts to find jurors that have not heard the facts about the case on the television or some form of

The typical parole practices that are used in today’s correctional system are supervision and rules for releases. When it comes down to it according to provisions of a statute (mandatory release/mandatory parole), there are many types of post-custody conditional supervision, or in other words the result of a sentence to a term of supervised release. (“Bureau of justice statistics (BJS) - community corrections (probation and parole),” 2016) “In the federal system, a term of supervised release is a sentence to a fixed period of supervision in the community that follows a sentence to a period of incarceration in federal prison, both of which are ordered at the time of

What is the process of diversion? “When pretrial diversion is used, a written agreement between the U.S. attorney and the chief pretrial services or probation officer defines aspects of its implementation” (Ulrich, 2002). Once implemented, the offender’s compliance is needed to move forward and there are rules, guidelines and expectations to be met on the offender’s behalf. Once critical issue noted is that of critics. We have learned that it helps with keeping jails less crowded but Is diversion helping or hurting recidivism? According to (Rivera, 2013), “McMurran and Theodosi (2007) found through a metaanalysis of 16 different

Courtroom procedures begin before the day of the trial arrives. In a criminal case, the pre-trial proceedings vary based on the severity of the crime. With a simple misdemeanor case, which could only result in minor jail time or a fine, the pre-trial procedures are short and simple. Usually, the defendant is called to a pre-trial hearing where they are read the charges pressed against them and are asked to give either their plea of guilty and be given a sentencing date, not guilty and be given a trial date and bail amount, or to plead no contest (American Bar Association). However, in a felony case that could lead to a serious incarceration sentence, the procedure becomes more complex. There is a first hearing that is similar to that of a misdemeanor, except that a plea is not given. This is done at the second preliminary hearing to determine if there is actually enough evidence to charge the defendant with a crime. If there isn’t enough, the charges are dropped, but if there is, the case moves along in the process (American Bar Association).