Criminal District Court, Delgado team up to provide paths forward for non-violent criminals

8th May 2017   ·   0 Comments

By Della Hasselle
Contributing Writer

Two months ago, Jamal Brown was sitting in New Orleans’ lockup when he caught a big break.

The 17-year-old from New Orleans East had been arrested in October after he got into a fight with his friends, he said. The incident resulted in a misdemeanor battery charge, and he was facing up to five years in the Orleans Justice Center.

Then, an Orleans Parish Criminal Court judge made him an offer he couldn’t refuse: Trade in jail time for probation, as long as he agreed to enroll in a program at Delgado Community College.

“I’m very grateful for it,” Brown told The Louisiana Weekly last Tuesday, just a few weeks away from when he was scheduled to take a test for placement for classes. “It sure beats sitting in that jail cell.”

Brown was one of the first dozen people to join a pilot program envisioned by Judge Arthur Hunter and created with Dr. Arnel Cosey, the executive dean at Delgado Community College. The program is called Delgado Forward, and it’s a diversion program for non-violent offenders who appear in Hunter’s courtroom because they are facing misdemeanor charges.

Brown, who only stayed in school through the 10th grade, is signing up for adult education classes, one of three pathways offered through the pilot diversion program.

His first plan is to enroll in the Accelerated Career Education program, or ACE, and gain some technical trade skills he could use to find gainful employment. From there, he has further aspirations: he ultimately wants to pursue a degree in architecture, after he eventually gets the equivalency of a high school diploma and works his way through school.

“I’m an artist, and I love drawing and all that,” Brown said, “but if I’m not active in doing something, my mind just wanders and I get into trouble.”

According to Hunter, the program was created for people just like Brown: teenagers and young adults who show potential, but need real solutions to help them avoid getting into legal trouble or resorting to various ways of making money out on the streets.

“Crime is number one in our community. We’ve been tough on crime. We have the highest incarceration rate in the world,” Hunter said. “This is about being smart on crime.”

In addition to getting guidance and a way to earn higher paying jobs, students also are presented with the possibility of getting their charges reduced and even their record expunged of the misdemeanor in question.

But Hunter warns that while the program is generous, it’s not a give-away.

“If they accept this program it is a condition of their probation,” Hunter said. “But if they violate their probation they have to come before me again, and it will not be pleasant.”

The adult basic education tract that Brown is taking also offers High School Equivalent ESL and pathways to the I.T., culinary, hospitality and health care industries.

But the program is for those with more advanced education, too. Those who have already graduated can enter either a workforce development program or a degree or certificate program offered to several students at Delgado.

Delgado Forward means that those who might normally go to jail for misdemeanor offenses may instead have a chance to learn a skill like carpentry or welding, or even end up with a college degree after enrolling in one of 70 or so credit programs Delgado offers.

“I see this as an opportunity for them to better themselves,” Hunter said. “Especially for women who come to the program, many working minimum-wage jobs… it’s a way for them to invest in themselves economically and educationally.”

Cosey agrees. She says part of her duty as a dean is to show commitment to the community, and be part of the solution that various community members may face.

During a recent interview, she said the program had the potential to be a “game changer.”

“There are so many individuals in my community who benefit from what Delgado offers,” Cosey said. “As you can imagine, it’s very difficult to get out and touch everyone that you can offer something to. So it’s beneficial for us when we can partner with people like Judge Hunter.”

Initially, she said, she wanted to just do an academic tract, but realized that wouldn’t be the best way to serve the community she was trying to help.

Instead, she started creating a program that would help people with differing levels of education, and even those who show no interest in a degree but need to find an honest living.

“Some of our students need to get trained to get work so they can take care of their family,” Cosey said. “We had to be prepared and provide as many different entryways as we could.”

Cosey also says she makes the program as easy for students to follow through on as she can. Not only do students get placement in the program that best suits them, after Hunter refers them, but they also are appointed a person of contact. That person, she said, can help them navigate the ins and outs of applying to a trade program or enrolling in college.

“We didn’t want Judge Hunter to say, ‘Go over to Delgado and get enrolled,’” Cosey said. “That can be a bit overwhelming, and we didn’t want any deterrents. We didn’t want any reason for people to say that it was too hard to stay enrolled.”

Like Cosey, Hunter thinks that the program ultimately will do much more than deter crime.

By investing in higher education, Hunter says the new program will also reduce poverty and make communities better, because people who have steady work are more likely to buy houses, invest in schools, pay taxes and do other things that benefit entire neighborhoods.

This article originally published in the May 8, 2017 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.