Arlington/Falls Church Community-Based Diversion and Stabilization Project

The Arlington Commonwealth Attorney's Office would like to enhance the Offender Aid and Restoration Diversion Program, in partnership with the Arlington grassroots nonprofit Offender Aid and Restoration of Arlington, Alexandria, and Falls Church. The program provides intensive reentry case management that connects defendants to community resources. Cases eligible for this program include property crimes, namely burglary, robbery, larceny, and theft offenses where the defendant appears to have unmet needs in the community which led them to an encounter with the criminal legal system. Prosecutors are encouraged to evaluate their case load with the Director of Diversion to determine if the individuals charged may be appropriate candidates for diversion. This program is designed to combat racial bias in our criminal legal system that systematically over-charges and over-prosecutes people of color. Prosecutors are similarly encouraged to consider how a defendant's racial identity might play a role when making referrals. Through the Pay for Success grant, the Arlington Commonwealth Attorney's Office will create an outcomes-based contract to scale the Diversion Program to meet community needs and train staff to better understand how racial bias impacts their case assessments. The intended beneficiaries of this grant are the individual program participants, their families, communities, and the general public as the program works to increase public safety through participant stabilization and decreased contact with the criminal legal system.