safety and Reform

Since taking office in 2020, Steve has reformed Fairfax’s criminal justice system by focusing on fairness, equality, and justice. Fairfax County is the safest jurisdiction of its size in America and is a model for how smart reform works. Communities don’t have to choose between public safety and reform—smart reforms result in broad, long-lasting public safety.

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Safety

Reforms

Diversion Programs: Diversion programs are critical to lowering recidivism rates and building long term community safety. These programs work by making individuals address the issues that have led them to commit an offense, instead of just mindlessly handing out probationary or short-term jail sentences that don’t do anything to address what is driving their behavior. Diversion programs aren’t appropriate in all cases, but when used correctly, they lower crime, keep people from getting the type of criminal record that limits their future opportunities, avoids the costly expenses associated with incarceration, and focuses the justice system’s limited resources on those who commit serious offenses.

As Commonwealth’s Attorney, Steve has:

• Created a “next generation” diversion program—Taking Root—that pairs individuals with case managers who write and oversee individualized service plans aimed at interrupting the cycle of crime and providing an off-ramp from incarceration. More information.

• Worked with community stakeholders to create a diversion program focused on helping individuals experiencing homelessness. In conversations with police officers, paramedics, judges, mental health professionals, substance use disorder professionals, and community members, Steve repeatedly heard that a small number of individuals routinely committed trespassing violations even though they were regularly arrested and convicted. These individuals would regularly be arrested, convicted, and after a short jail stay, come back to where they were initially arrested and be arrested again. Clearly, the traditional mode of prosecution was not working for this cohort, many of whom were experiencing homelessness and had mental health or substance abuse issues driving their behavior. Steve created a diversion program for this population that is focused on connecting them with caseworkers and mental health, substance use, and housing resources.

• Partnered with the court to improve and expand the specialty Drug Treatment Court. Before Steve was Commonwealth’s Attorney, Fairfax County’s Drug Treatment Court was limited to serving only those who had already been convicted of a crime, were on probation, and had committed a probation violation related to substance dependency. Steve expanded this program such that it is available to people before they’re prosecuted with the understanding that they can have their charges dropped if they complete the Drug Treatment Court’s program requirements. This change increased the attractiveness of the Drug Treatment Court and created real motivation to successfully complete the Court’s program requirements. Not only can people get help with their substance abuse issues, but they can avoid a felony conviction that will severely limit their future work, housing, and schooling options.

• Increased the use of the court’s Veterans Treatment Docket and Mental Health Docket. Steve has made identifying people suitable for these specialty dockets a top priority. Furthermore, Steve has widened the scope of who is eligible for these specialty dockets and offered better incentives to attract eligible individuals to engage with these rigorous, high-intensity specialty dockets.

• Created the position of Diversion Coordinator. Instead of relying on individual prosecutors to making one-off diversion referrals, Steve tasks the prosecutor serving as Diversion Coordinator to review cases before they’re assigned to other prosecutors, identify potential candidates for all the available diversion programs, and shepherd the candidates who avail themselves of the offered diversion opportunities into the proper program. This has increased the number of people being diverted and increased the quality of the match between programs and their participants.

Helping those with substance use issues: In addition to the Drug Treatment Court, Steve has moved past treating drug issues with failed War-on-Drugs-style tactics and now focuses on treatment and rehabilitation. Steve’s office realizes that addiction is an illness, not a crime. No community can prosecute its way out of illness. Instead, Steve’s office creatively crafts alternatives to prosecution for those who simply need help.

Leading the Commonwealth: Steve has led Virginia by implementing reforms that were later enacted into law by the Virginia General Assembly. These reforms include declining to prosecute marijuana possession, refusing to seek the death penalty, and not using 3 rd strike charging enhancements for petty larceny.

Doing better for victims: Steve has focused on supporting victims by:

• Creating specialty teams that focus on some of the most traumatic crimes—domestic violence and sex crimes against children. This ensures that victims of these crimes are supported by prosecutors well-versed in trauma-informed best practices.

• Changing the structure of the office so that cases are quickly assigned to one prosecution team that handles the case throughout its entirety. This reduces unnecessary delays which frustrate victims and allows victims to build strong relationships with their prosecutors.

• Creating a Red Flag Law team to handle all Red Flag Law hearings aimed at getting guns out of the hands of those who represent a danger. By training the office’s prosecutors to proactively use Virginia’s Red Flag Law and implementing a smooth process, Steve is working to ensure that victims of crime are safe from gun violence.

• Dispatching prosecutors to homicide scenes. Working with detectives from the investigation’s start improves the quality of the office’s homicide prosecutions and assures families that their loved one’s death is their prosecutor’s top priority.

Investing in our future: Steve invests in our community’s kids by treating them as kids, not adults, and prioritizing rehabilitative interventions instead of adult incarceration. Minors are uniquely well-suited to rehabilitation, which is why the juvenile justice system offers programs and opportunities for minors, not available in the adult system, to get their lives back on track. Putting a minor into the adult system greatly increases the likelihood that their future will consist of recidivism and repeated incarceration. Knowing this, Steve has taken away the ability of his office’s prosecutors to unilaterally charge a juvenile as an adult.

Smarter Bail Decisions: From his first day in office, Steve has not asked for cash bail. Cash bail undercuts one of the most critical pillars of our criminal justice system: the idea that the rich and poor should get the same access to justice. Cash bail creates a two-tiered system of justice where wealth determines whether someone sleeps at home or in a cell. By focusing on dangerousness instead of wealth when making pretrial detention and release recommendations, Steve is improving community safety and building a more equal justice system.