District Attorney’s Office expanding diversion and restorative justice services in Larimer County with State grant money & More Latest News Here

The 8th Judicial District Attorney’s Office is now expanding its diversion and restorative justice programs after receiving a grant from Colorado.

The DA’s Office received a $151,955 grant over the summer through several Senate bills with money that originally came from the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, according to District Attorney Gordon McLaughlin. The grant covers one fiscal year.

McLaughlin said that with the grant, the office is able to help expand its diversion and restorative justice resources to more than just Larimer and Jackson County juveniles, with the grant expanding the program for adult offenders across the counties.

He said that diversion works exactly as it sounds, helping to divert people from the criminal justice program after committing a crime by having them take part in alternative means of accountability.

Restorative justice, he said, is the idea of taking those people and letting them actively take responsibility for the damage that they may have caused, a process that he said is meant to help drive down recidivism among offenders.

“This is going to be a very tailored program to attend to the folks going into it,” McLaughlin said. “This is not a restorative justice means go take a two hour class … and see you later. We want to make sure people really get the full picture and the full breadth of what they have done, why it was harmful and why they can’t do it again.”

People selected for the program are more non-serious crimes, but these offenses still have victims and people who were impacted, which plays a major role in the realm of restorative justice, he said.

Carrie Bielenberg, diversion coordinator, said diversion and restorative justice, while going hand in hand, are two different things. She described diversion as an alternative to traditional court that reaches people before they make a first appearance to minimize criminal justice contact.

She added that it is “truly an outcome” of a case, and part of that outcome can be restorative justice.

Kailee Melendez, diversion specialist, said restorative justice is a different lens of the criminal justice system that looks at the victim, the offender and the community to see what harm was caused by a crime and who is responsible for repairing that harm.

“It is helping people understand the impact of their actions,” she said. “Really looking at themselves and what led to them making those decisions and how they are going to repair that harm.”

She said the diversion team goes through around 170 cases a week to see what people would best apply for the diversion program.

She said that they will continue to screen the cases and ensure that the people going into the program go through the restorative justice path that fits them and the crime the best, which could include things like impact or victim panels and emphasizing reintegration into the community.

According to statistics provided by the DA’s Office, between Jan. 1 and Aug. 1 of this year, the office had 28 adult behavioral health diversion cases with 8 cases being completed and dismissed successfully and 168 unsupervised adult diversion cases with 121 being completed and dismissed successfully.

McLaughlin also said another benefit of putting people through the program is allowing them to dismiss their case at the completion of a diversion contract, which opens up the eligibility for a case to be sealed.

“Sealing records can enable someone who has mitigated their harm and gotten back on the right track to remain eligible for jobs, housing, education, and other programs which increase their stability in the community and therefore lower their risk to reoffend,” he wrote in a follow-up email to the Reporter-Herald.

For the members of the DA’s Office though, diversion and restorative justice are great ways to help address crimes while also redirecting people to resources and tools to keep them out of the criminal justice system

Melendez said she finds it “amazing” that their office wants to show people the ripple effect a crime can cause and help them not want to do something like it again.

“The sooner we can help educate and give them a face to who they have impacted, the more empathy people are willing to show,” she said. “The well-rounded resources we connect them to too, whether it is mental health, substance use, housing, those basic needs is really great. We are going to put them in a better position than they came in.”

“(In) Larimer County we have a ton of resources,” Bielenberg said. “It is so unfortunate when youth or adults have to come in contact with this system in order to access resources or become aware of those opportunities. So being able to connect them with those resources for basic needs that don’t require a case in the future either creates that ability for them to be successful in the long haul.”

McLaughlin said the grant was essentially a one-year deal, and the office will have to apply again each year. However, he said he is confident they will receive it again because of the work they are doing in giving community members the tools they need to not reoffend.

“(It) is of the utmost importance to me, both in terms of furthering equity in our community … but also to promote community safety,” he said. “If folks aren’t coming back, aren’t committing more crimes, we are creating a safer community.”