After participating in a two-day presentation and discussion, prosecutors, representatives from the Georgia Department of Juvenile Justice, Bibb County School District and other government and community partners have developed the framework for a new school-justice partnership.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The partnership, modeled on successes experienced by Clayton County\u2019s schools and juvenile court, will focus on addressing the root causes for why juvenile offenders break the law and offering diversion programs as an alternative to incarceration for low-level offenders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Participants in the two-day site visit collaboratively began determining what offenses will result in students receiving needed services and under what circumstances a case is referred to court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe point is to make sure kids who get in trouble receive the services they need and aren\u2019t prosecuted unless they need to be. There\u2019s usually an underlying reason for why they\u2019re getting in trouble.”<\/p>District Attorney David Cooke<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
Having treatment options available, school resource officers will come to be seen by students as adults who want to help them. Lines of communication could be opened with students, making them comfortable enough to come forward to tell officers information that could prevent future violent crimes. By diverting non-violent offenders to treatment programs, law enforcement and prosecutors can devote more time to prosecuting dangerous offenders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe\u2019re excited. This has been proven to work in jurisdictions that have implemented it. They\u2019ve all seen their graduation rates go up and their crime go down.”<\/p>David Cooke<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s recommended that the remainder of the planning process be completed within three to six months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Partners are working toward a goal of signing an agreement that would go into effect by the beginning of the 2018-2019 school year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After participating in a two-day presentation and discussion, prosecutors, representatives from the Georgia Department of Juvenile Justice, Bibb County School District and other government and community partners have developed the framework for a new school-justice partnership. The partnership, modeled on successes experienced by Clayton County\u2019s schools and juvenile court, will focus on addressing the root […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[559],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-announcements","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2565"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2565\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}