Sonoma County Court System Case Study

The sonoma county court system uses diversion services for its first time juvenile offenders for certain crimes. This diversion program starts before any trial begins and after the case is analyzed to see if it qualifies. These are a lot of drug and theft cases that juveniles in the community are guilty of.
The court hands the defendants to the Probation Department. The offender has multiple factors that must be included to qualify for the program. If the individual does qualify they are put on informal probation. This is a contract that must be upheld or the defendant can be sent back to court and given a traditional trial. THe informal probationary period lasts up to six months with no court involvement. THis contract can include community service work, station, educational classes, treament, community organizations and more.
This program includes family functional therapy a ten to twelve week therapy program. This allows for the family and the offender to learn better parenting and communication skills. This is ran by community organizations with family therapy experts. Another intervention is restorative justice that includes the
This allows for the victim to be heard and valued and the offender to not be labeled in the future as an offender. This is all done within Sonoma County California. The pros of the program are the goals that it plans to achieve to reduce recidivism, allow offenders to learn to become better members of the community, and for the victims to be included and understood. This community also benefits from this because of the community service work it gets from the offenders. This allows for tax paying incarceration and court fees to not be necessary for first time offenders. This does not work all the time especially when the offender will not take