OC’s Young Adult Court Offers a Second Chance
Elizabeth Cauffman, a UCI Professor of Psychological Science, Education and Law, co-created Young Adult Court of Orange County. Photo credit Han Parker.
While many talk about criminal justice reform, Orange County is doing it. With the advent of its Young Adult Court pilot program, now in its second year, researchers are learning whether first time felons can turn their lives around. If participants can successfully finish the Young Adult Court program, their records are wiped clean.
Irvine resident, University of California at Irvine professor and Young Adult Court co-creator Elizabeth Cauffman spoke with The Vine about her program. She describes what the Young Adult Court is and how it might change criminal justice for the better.
“Young Adult Court is really a second chance,” says Cauffman, who compares having a felony on someone’s record to Hester Prynne’s predicament in The Scarlet Letter. “When you have a felony on your record, you can't get a job at certain places, certain housing facilities won't let you live there, you can't get certain grants for schooling. You're basically shunned. You are wearing that felony for the rest of your life.”
As an alternative, Young Adult Court offers some 18 to 25-year-old males the opportunity to participate in a program that holds them accountable but allows them to move on.
“This is social justice,” Cauffman explains. “Nobody's saying that people shouldn't pay the price for what they've done. But in the current system, you're going to have to pay that price for the rest of your life.”
Instead, Young Adult Court participants have a second chance.
“That's what this court is about,” says Cauffman. “We hold people accountable, but in developmentally appropriate ways. I want these young men back in my community working, doing what they're supposed to do, going back to school. We want people to be productive.”
It was this desire to see young felons rehabilitated that led a large group of agencies to work together. At the heart of this effort was Cauffman and her frequent collaborator, Judge Maria Hernandez, the former presiding judge of Orange County’s juvenile court.
“Judge Hernandez and I have been working very closely over the past ten years,” says Cauffman. “When Judge Hernandez left the juvenile court for the criminal court, we decided to take what we know from the juvenile court and apply it to the criminal court. That is why we focused on those 18 to 25-year-olds, who are basically at the peak of the justice system. So it was the perfect age range to focus on.”
Once Cauffman and Hernandez began outlining their plan for Young Adult Court, they needed to find the money and assemble the team to make it a reality. Revamping young adult justice takes a village.
Professor Cauffman in court with a Young Adult Court graduate. Photo credit Mimi Cruz
“When we started, we had no money,” recalls Cauffman, “so I wrote a grant to the National Institute of Justice. And Judge Hernandez, because she's the amazing woman that she is, brought all the players together.”
It was the esteem that Orange County has for Judge Hernandez that inspired these county agencies to align under a common cause.
“In order to do this, you have to have the district attorney's office, the public defender's office, social services, probation, and the sheriff,” explains Cauffman. “Judge Hernandez not only got all these agencies together at the table but was also able to get them to agree on a program. It's a testament to all the agencies in Orange County. Everyone saw the potential in this program and was willing to take a chance.”
Although there are a handful of Young Adult Courts across the country, Orange County’s is the first Young Adult Court being conducted as a randomized control trial. Cauffman and her team study the young men who are chosen for the program as well as the young men who aren’t. The men in the regular judicial system and those in the Young Adult Court system are all followed during and after their time served to see how they fare. The results of Cauffman’s study will potentially change how we view our approach to felony-charged young adults.
“It's just like any drug trial,” Cauffman says. “We have people who are all eligible for the court, and then some get selected to participate and some don't. We're tracking all of them to follow long-term how they do. We've been doing it for about two years now, and we have about 30 people in each group. We’re tracking progress, and we'll see how it turns out.”
Who gets selected to participate in the Young Adult Court trial is random, but not every felon is eligible. Potential subjects must meet criteria that makes them appropriate for the opportunity to get a clean slate.
“If you commit a felony murder, if a weapon was used, sex offenses, if there's any great bodily injury, or anything serious, then you're not eligible for this court,” says Cauffman.
The program participants follow is tailored to each individual’s case. Each participant must pass four phases: engagement, accountability, stability, and attainment. Engagement requires participants to stay in contact with their probation officer and case manager. Accountability involves goal setting. Goals might include going back to school, getting a job, or finding housing. Stability requires follow through on goals. Depending on those goals, case managers may want to see if participants are attending school, showing up to their jobs, or living in stable housing, The final phase, attainment, is what Cauffman describes as “cruising,” or seeing that everything is in place. This might mean a participant graduated from high school or got a job.
“He has a plan moving forward,” Cauffman says of those who have hit all four of the program’s milestones. “All we're really doing is getting these guys the skill sets they need to actually be productive in the community. Because nobody's ever shown them before.”
The skills Young Adult Court teaches range widely and may include writing a resume, filling out a job application, or finding where to look for job openings. Participants are taught skills they may never have had an opportunity to learn. Many organizations are providing resources and skills training that make the Young Adult Court function. Cauffman is particularly grateful for key partnerships in the community.
“The Orangewood Foundation donated their time,” says Cauffman. “They have worked with us for the past two years doing the case management and they are just fantastic.”
Watch Professor Cauffman, Judge Hernandez, Sheriff Barnes and others discuss OC’s Young Adult Court program.
The support of the Community Action Partnership of Orange County has been particularly influential to the Young Adult Court.
“The Community Action Partnership of Orange County, the CAP OC, just supported this court with a $749,000 grant,” Cauffman says. “This funding will be used to hire more social workers, to hire a full-time case manager and to give us the resources we need to help these young men. Funds to buy the cell phones they need, buy the suit that they need to go interview, buy the work boots that they need to go to their job. CAP OC has really come through with this amazing grant to basically help us take the Young Adult Court to the next level.”
While the Young Adult Court’s participants have faced many obstacles and set backs in their personal lives, the program itself experienced a major challenge when the pandemic hit.
“COVID nearly brought us to our knees,” says Cauffman. “We had just gotten the court up and running. We were really getting things under control. And then it was like having the rug pulled out from underneath us. Services are closed, opportunities are closed. They can't go anywhere. They can't do anything. They can't even get to AA meetings. The good thing is now things are a bit back up, but March, April, May, June, we were a mess.”
While coronavirus-related restrictions briefly ground much of the activity to a halt, the program is gradually gaining members.
“We're slowly rebuilding,” Cauffman says. “The goal is to grow the court until we have enough data to analyze it to see what's working and what's not working. We should see what does and doesn't work, and then adjust accordingly. The ultimate goal is that not only is this court open for everyone but that this becomes something that we do not just here in Orange County, but across the country.”
Whether that happens is entirely up to the participants. Will they choose to live a crime-free life when their felonies are erased?
“Now we have six graduates and their felonies are off their records,” says Cauffman. “We hope it works, but that's why we're collecting the data. In fairness, we don't know yet. Maybe it doesn't.”
While Cauffman views the potential outcome of Young Adult Court with a scientist’s objectivity, she harbors hope for the program and its participants.
“We shouldn't give up,” she says. “Just because somebody makes a mistake, it shouldn't define them for the rest of their lives. So hopefully by using science to guide policy and practice, we can make things a little bit better.”