ACResolution Magazine

The collaborative model promotes efficiency by reducing the use of court resources in the traditional judicial process and reducing the likelihood of future juvenile justice involvement. Case-specific issues are addressed early and successfully, saving time for County agency staff and promoting further positive outcomes for participants. The program is partially funded by a Fairfax County Consolidated Community Funding Pool grant that supports the multi-agency collaboration from a human services lens.

OUTCOMES

Although restorative justice programming in Fairfax County has been in place since 2008, AAP itself is relatively new. Drawing heavily on its well-established, school-based restorative justice program and a later emerging juvenile court-based pilot, AAP planning began in 2013 and its launch occurred in September 2014.

The program has thus far produced impressive results: increased interagency cooperation and collaboration, positive service outcomes, low recidivism rates, and high levels of satisfaction by youth participants, parents, affected community members and stakeholders. As shown by this brief summary, early AAP results are significant and very promising:

• Participation is robust and yields productive outcomes: of the 176 juveniles referred to AAP,

140 completed the AAP process and reached an agreement.

• Participation has been successful with a wide range of offenses: disorderly conduct, assault, theft, trespassing, vandalism, and other misdemeanor and minor felony crimes.

• The number of students arrested in the participating school system dropped by 10% in

2016.

• As noted on the accompanying chart, the recidivism rate for juveniles participating in AAP has been only 8%

• Greater interagency collaboration including increasing communication between Police Officers and School Administrators about crimes in schools, reducing incidents of unintended double punishment in court and school discipline systems.

• Positive community stakeholder outcomes reported by those participating in the program and organizations receiving community service as part of AAP agreements.

• High levels of satisfaction by youth participants, parents, affected community members and other stakeholder.

• To date, the AAP has served youth of diverse backgrounds, including a high proportion of minorities.

One AAP conference participant said the most helpful part of the process was “kids having to address the issues and take ownership for action.” Youth learn much from the AAP experience; one recent participant wrote on his evaluation that “I got to say my feelings and I learned about new ways I can get out of [a] problem.” Those working with juvenile offenders agree on the program’s positive results. One probation officer commented "The Fairfax County Alternative Accountability Program (AAP) has allowed for low level offenders an opportunity to avoid formal court intervention without jeopardizing public safety. These juveniles are held accountable for their behavior as well as repairing the harm that was done to their victims. The police department can use AAP so that youth in Fairfax County are given an opportunity to learn from their mistakes. Lastly, it has empowered the victims to have a voice in the harm that was done to them."

Fairfax County can expect to reap increasingly positive results ever more efficiently, as the AAP continues to grow. In 2017, AAP will expand from its pilot stage of only including 200 schools and 3 police districts to including all 8 of the Fairfax County police districts and the Fairfax City police. As the program expands, more data is being collected and will undergo deeper analysis. Program leaders will continue to monitor actively program data and evaluations in order to better serve more youth and community stakeholders, raise awareness about the many positive outcomes available through restorative justice and learn from the experience.

The multi-agency restorative justice program model has potential applications for adapted use with other audiences in early intervention, diversion, and re-entry scenarios. It presents one format for consideration in the broad and growing field of restorative work. The AAP works because it is a truly integrative model with a premium on collaboration. The partnering agencies fully support the program’s mission; and they commit time and resources into ensuring its success in helping youth to correct their course while repairing harm in affected communities.

DAVID T.
DEAL

is an attorney and a practicing mediator. He is co-coor-dinator of NVMS’ restorative justice program, which includes facilitating cases, training and mentoring. Dave has made practice-oriented restorative justice presentations before local and national audiences and has been involved in restorative justice since 2007. He has published several articles on restorative justice.