About three years ago, two young men from Santa Ana were charged with the same crime. One is a free man with no criminal record and believed less likely to ever be arrested again. Why?
It’s not a riddle.
It’s the result of a unique restorative justice experiment in Orange County that could send ripple effects across the criminal justice system.
Young Adult Court is a pilot program in the Orange County Superior Court that aims to reduce recidivism and promote positive life outcomes for men ages 18 through 25 who have encountered trouble with the law.
About 20 counties nationwide practice similar restorative justice programs.
But Orange County’s is the only program designed as a randomized control trial.
That could explain why Sam Solorio, one of the two young men from Santa Ana, was accepted into the program while his friend was rejected.
“I saw it as a sign,” Solorio said.
It could have been the luck of the draw.
“The biggest criticism I get is that nobody wants randomizing people to justice,” said UC Irvine psychologist Beth Cauffman, who helped design and continues to research Young Adult Court.
“But, we have so many young men eligible,” she said. “The best way to do it is to create a random process so that we can study what’s the typical system like versus doing this.”
Cauffman’s previous study at the intersection of developmental psychology and the law was cited by the U.S. Supreme Court in a 2005 case that abolished the juvenile death penalty.
Later, she took an interest in researching young adult males because of what she calls the “age-crime curve.”
“Crime peaks during that time, from ages 18 to 25, and then it declines, coinciding amazingly well with brain development,” she said. “It’s usually the age when we all do our most stupid stuff.”
For now, the program focuses only on men for two reasons, Cauffman said.
“The base rate of female crime is lower than male crime. And, women have different needs,” Cauffman said.
“One of the biggest mistakes the justice system makes is to just throw girls in,” she said. “If you want to have a program for girls, it needs to be designed for girls.”
“They’re going to be dealing with pregnancy, they’re going to be dealing with domestic violence, they’re going to be dealing with a different type of trauma set. All of those things are extremely different,” she said. “And so the programming needs to be different, which means you need specialists in those areas.”
Eventually, Cauffman would like to see Young Adult Court expanded to include women and more types of offenders.
There’s no hard-and-fast rule about who’s eligible for Young Adult Court now, but most violent offenders are not.
“We see a lot of young men who committed robbery, burglary and other generally nonviolent felonies,” said Frankie Martinez, a case manager for young men in the program.
Young Adult Court started around 2018, designed by Cauffman and Orange County Superior Court Judge Maria D. Hernandez.
Since 2020, nearly 50 men, including Solorio, have graduated. The drop-out rate is low. So is the recidivism rate.
The UCI scientist studies the program’s results while Hernandez administers its cases from the bench.
“When young people in this age category get involved in the criminal justice system, we need to do a better job at how we address their needs, their outcomes and how to support them,” Hernandez said. “You don’t treat the 20-year-old the same way you’re going to treat a 35-year-old man who comes before the court system.”
“We learned very quickly and very early on through a lot of research that developmentally appropriate intervention works,” Hernandez said. “This is truly the intersectionality of science and the law and making changes.”
So far, Young Adult Court seems to be effective, Cauffman said. “We’re starting to see, preliminarily, positive results.”
Though a small sample size, these men have demonstrated far lower re-arrest rates relative to men in similar positions who have gone through Orange County’s traditional criminal justice system. They’re also far likelier to pay restitution and to maintain housing and employment after their sentences, Cauffman said.
She plans to publish a preliminary research paper as soon as this summer.
Instead of serving time behind bars, Solorio said Young Adult Court helped him to “change for the better.”
While on probation, the 23-year-old earned his commercial truck driver’s license and secured a job with the United States Postal Service, delivering mail across the Lower 48.
“I feel like I’m doing the right thing, making the world a better place,” he said. “I have a career I can finally be proud of.”
So, how does Young Adult Court work? And why is it successful?
In exchange for pleading guilty to one or more felonies, men screened for the program by the district attorney’s office and the court can avoid jail time and eventually have their cases expunged.
For that to happen, the young men must succeed in a strict probation program for 18 to 24 months.
During that time, they must check in just about every two weeks at the Santa Ana courthouse with Hernandez. They must secure and hold down employment and stable housing. They must enter therapy, seek assistance for possible substance abuse issues and pay restitution.
It’s a time-intensive and expensive rehabilitation process that’s funded in part by grants and donors and managed by the Orangewood Foundation — a nonprofit that assigns caseworkers to each young man and, sometimes, helps them financially with groceries, housing, tuition or other expenses.
Peer mentors — earlier graduates of the program — also volunteer to help current probationers navigate life’s challenges.
The upfront costs of Young Adult Court are high. While Cauffman doesn’t yet have an economic analysis available, she points out that the cost of incarcerating an individual for one year in California averages more than $130,000.
“We’re lowering the cost of crime,” she said, noting the program’s higher restitution and lower recidivism rates.
Orange County’s chief probation officer, Daniel Hernandez, said he believes this program can lead to what he calls a “cure for crime.”
“We — the system, the legislature — all need to stop taking shots in the dark and start to rely on what we have known and have proven to work,” he said.
“Young Adult Court is the embodiment of evidence-based practices that have been proven to work over the years,” he added, alluding to preliminary findings from similar programs that have existed for about two decades. “Having UCI measure and confirm or measure and adjust is the gold standard.”
“Using research to reduce crime is absolutely what we should be doing,” he concluded.
Young Adult Court takes a village.
It’s one of the most successful interagency collaborations in Orange County, multiple stakeholders said.
The county’s largest research institution is on board. The superior court is on board. The chief probation officer. The Orangewood Foundation.
Sheriff Don Barnes has never missed any of the 16 Young Adult Court graduations. Neither has Chief Public Defender Martin Schwarz.
Tamika Williams, a deputy district attorney, tries all the Young Adult Court cases.
All these stakeholders have to align on the treatment for the men in Young Adult Court.
“This is not just a courtroom,” Judge Hernandez said from the bench during the latest Young Adult Court graduation on Friday, March 21, a series of hearings during which she expunged the cases against eight individuals.
“This is a collaborative, multidisciplinary approach to doing the justice system in a different way and, quite frankly, in a better way,” she said.
Sheriff Barnes, speaking to the eight March graduates, said, “You think that we’d be adversarial. We’re not.”
“When Judge Hernandez talks about collaboration, that means everybody is on the same page to help you, to lift you up, to cure you when necessary, to make sure that you hopefully make better decisions,” the sheriff said.
“You get a fresh start.”
Still, everyone involved with the program hears some type of pushback against their work.
“The biggest criticism I get is that I’m okay with criminals being out in the community,” Martinez said. “However, the critics don’t initially see the other side — where we support these young men to improve their well-being, to integrate within society, to contribute to the community by becoming self-sufficient young men who pay taxes and hold jobs.”
Even Judge Hernandez said she faces skeptics among her peers in the judiciary.
“Change is something I think all of us have to approach differently, and this is a very different way of doing business in the criminal justice system,” she said.
“There are folks that say you’re giving them a free ride when, in fact, we’re not,” she said.
“It’s a very robust and rigorous program as far as supervision, intervention, expectations and conditions for them to complete. They’re actually doing far more than somebody the normal course of the justice system would do on a grant of probation,” she said.
At the graduation ceremony, case managers made clear that expungement is not an elixir for the perfect life.
Many of the young men exonerated that afternoon left the courtroom to go back to one of the multiple jobs they hold to make ends meet for their families.
“Your growth is not about perfection,” youth support supervisor Crystal Ford told them. “It’s about progress.”
That message is resonating with Solorio as he starts a new chapter in life.
“Beyond career success, Young Adult Court provided me with something just as important — a healthier mindset,” he said.
“With therapy, mentorships and the many activities they offered, I learned how to process my emotions, handle challenges and stay focused on my goals,” he told a full courtroom. “Young Adult Court helped me break through the mental barriers that once held me back, replacing them with confidence, self-worth and the drive to keep pushing forward.”
“God bless you all, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart,” he told Judge Hernandez and all the people who worked on his case. “You change lives, including mine.”