If not for the OC Young Adult Court program, 26-year-old Joseph Mwamba thinks he would have probably ended up in jail again.
Since graduating from the program in February 2021, Mwamba has attended nursing school in Pomona, gotten his certified nursing assistant license and been working with children with autism. He also serves as a peer mentor in the Young Adult Court study.
“It was a wonderful experience,” Mwamba said.
The OC Young Adult Court is a collaborative program with the Orange County Superior Court for first-time felony offenders between the ages of 18 and 25. Those who participate in the program and graduate can have their felony charge dismissed or reduced to a misdemeanor.
In addition to holding a participant accountable for the crime committed — which includes keeping up with court appearances and checking in regularly with a probation officer — the Young Adult Court also provides personal and professional tools, such as help with applications to community colleges and assistance in securing stable housing to prevent recidivism.
The program is targeted toward men who commit low-grade felonies. Those who commit a violent crime or sex offense are ineligible.
Since its inception, 19 people have graduated from the program, including Mwamba.
And the program recently added a new component — in-house mental health services.
In July 2021, the Orange County Health Care Agency awarded UC Irvine a $10.1 million grant to expand the study of the Orange County Young Adult Court. A research team at UC Irvine led by Elizabeth Cauffman, a professor of psychological science, tracks the outcomes of graduates.
The grant focuses on the mental health and behavioral issues that some of the men in the program experience by providing clinical support as well, Cauffman said. Previously, participants in the Young Adult Court were referred out for therapy; now, with this funding, services can be provided in-house to treat things like depression and PTSD.
“Now we are able to better address their needs so they can get the support they need to get their lives back on track,” Cauffman said.
Preliminary data, Orange County Superior Court Presiding Judge Maria Hernandez said, suggests some of the barriers to mental health access are transportation, unstable housing, and alcohol and drug dependency. All these “culminated issues” can “become barriers that cause folks to make poor decisions,” Hernandez said.
“Having the (mental health) services available to us and enhanced by the grant, I think it’s going to make a tremendous difference in outcomes for the young people involved,” Hernandez said, noting that addressing the core issues for mental health access can make the community safer by helping reduce recidivism or reoffense.
Mwamba said he wishes he had these services when he was in the program.
“People … on probation, we go through a lot of stuff we can’t talk about with other people,” Mwamba said. “Having a counselor there to talk to, to express how you feel, and having somebody listening really means a lot.”
Providing mental health services to participants is “a good idea,” Mwamba said, because some of the participants in the program have “nobody else to talk to outside of their probation officer.”
Calling the Young Adult Court a “treatment program in a court system,” Hernandez said this approach is an individually tailored, multidisciplinary and collaborative effort that helps address the factors that led to the crime in the first place to prevent reoffending.
Launched in Orange County as a pilot project in August 2018 funded by a grant from the National Institute of Justice, the Young Adult Court is among only a few such programs in the country.
The court was started by Cauffman; Hernandez; Zachary Rowan, assistant professor of criminology at Simon Fraser University in Canada; the Orange County Probation Department; the Orange County Public Defender and Defense Bar; the Orange County District Attorney’s Office and the Orangewood Foundation. Community partners like the Orangewood Foundation provide assistance for housing, education, employment and counseling.
The court, Cauffman said, is “an opportunity for people who have made mistakes to be held accountable but in a developmentally appropriate way.”
In the program, participants must attend all court hearings, meet with their probation officers, enroll in rehabilitation programs, find stable housing, go back to school or work and even make “sure they are productive in the community,” Cauffman said. After 18 months to two years in the program — and having met their obligations — only then will the judge dismiss or reduce their felony charge.
“When I got out of jail, I didn’t have a lot of money to buy food, but when I go over there (OC Young Adult Court) they give me breakfast, lunch and stuff to bring back home,” Mwamba said.
The program helped him meet basic needs, including soap and a toothbrush, but also to apply for school and fix his credit score.
Mwamba, who just got a promotion at work, wants to continue in ABA (applied behavioral analysis) therapy for autism.
“It’s just an amazing job. Helping others is what I really like to do,” he said.
