Diverting Children

Growing up means making mistakes and learning from those mistakes. The mistakes we learn from while growing up make us the successful adults we are today. The secret is to not make the life changing mistakes that can take a lifetime to deal with, Everybody knows somebody who did something as a young adult that has haunted them ever since.  Dealing with the criminal justice system as a juvenile has the potential to make a life harder for these children as adults.

With that principle in mind, the juvenile diversion program was developed. The Parma Heights Police Department is a participant in this program.  In this program, first time juvenile offenders are offered a chance to participate.  Successful completion means there is no criminal charge on the child's record. This gives the child an opportunity to make a mistake and not be punished for years for a bad decision they made. To understand how the process works, lets look at how a case would progress through the system

Johnny is caught sending threats to a friend  via his phone and on facebook. The parents of the victim child file a police report. The detective does the followup and the paperwork is forwarded to the Juvenile Intake Officer at the Cuyahoga County Prosecutors office to determine if the child is eligible for juvenile diversion. If the child is eligible, the case is returned to the Parma Heights Police Department for the scheduling of a diversion court.

In the diversion court (which is held at Parma Heights City Hall) the child admits to the facts of the case and is "sentenced" to number of hours of community service and a fine. The community service is then scheduled and the child works the required number of hours. As long as the hours are completed and the work is satisfactory, they are released from the program and they will have the original charge dismissed, meaning the child does not have a criminal record.

Not all children are eligible for diversion. Most felony crimes are not eligible. Some violent misdemeanors are not eligible, as well as most sex offenses. Thefts of large amounts of money or property will usually keep you out of diversion also. Some drug offenses are eligible, some are not.

The diversion court is operated by Sgt. Ron Arpajian.  He is the magistrate.  He received special training to be qualified to be a magistrate.  Under the guidelines of the program, the magistrate must receive the training in order to conduct the court.  With the help of Secretary Kathy Hriczo, he organizes the court.  He sends out the "summons" to appear, hears the accused children explain their crime and then determines the amount of community service they will be sentenced too, as well as the amount of the fine.

The files are then transferred to Detectives Steve Scharschmidt and Dave Kunker. They have the daunting task of developing activities for the diversion children to participate in, then scheduling all the children, then supervising them in those activities.  (sometimes the number of children they are required to schedule can be in the teens) They keep track of the hours and the parental contacts, and determine when a child has met the requirements laid down by the diversion court.

It is important to note that the program is only for first time offenders. The guiding principal behind the program is to allow a child to learn from a mistake, make amends for the bad decision and then move on. If the child commits a second offense, it is assumed the child did not learn and is then processed through the criminal justice system.  Any child that does not complete the requirements of the program is also returned to the criminal justice system to face the charges of the original crime they committed.

Most people do not view the criminal justice system as a proactive system.  Rarely do you hear of a criminal justice agency involved in programs attempting to keep people from becoming criminals. Those programs do exist. The fact that most programs like this operate behind the scenes, with very little exposure to the general public, results in most citizens being unaware that programs like this exist. The system does operate in a way which attempts to  benefit those willing to take responsibility and put the effort forth to show they are appreciative of the fact that one's mistake can be forgiven. That is a life lesson in and of itself.

Read More on Parma Heights
Volume 2, Issue 10, Posted 9:51 AM, 11.04.2010