Before I became a criminal defense attorney, I experienced the criminal justice system from the other side.
Growing up amid poverty, violence and gang involvement, I was arrested 13 times before the age of 19. My future appeared predictable. But education, accountability, opportunity and people willing to invest in my potential changed the trajectory of my life.
I eventually earned a law degree, became an attorney and returned to the same justice system I once encountered as a defendant.
That journey taught me something I have carried throughout my career: accountability matters, but accountability paired with education and opportunity can change lives.
In 2015, I founded Rehabilitation Enables Dreams, or RED, to reduce recidivism through education, accountability and opportunity. For more than a decade, our work has centered on a fundamental question: What if we intervene before someone becomes permanently trapped in the criminal justice system?
Today, that mission continues through RED Ed®, a Cognia-accredited Pretrial Intervention and Diversion (PTID) Program designed to support jurisdictions in providing structured, measurable intervention.
The concept is straightforward: turn courtrooms into classrooms.
For appropriate participants selected by a jurisdiction, PTID creates an opportunity to address behaviors and circumstances contributing to criminal conduct while maintaining accountability.
RED Ed® combines risk assessment, emotional intelligence, civic education, financial literacy, workforce readiness, health and wellness, practical life skills, compliance monitoring and outcome measurement within one integrated program.
The objective is not to excuse criminal conduct.
It is to reduce the likelihood that it happens again.
Georgia already has compelling evidence that structured intervention can produce significant fiscal and economic benefits.
According to the Council of Accountability Court Judges, Georgia’s accountability courts generated approximately $269.3 million in diversion savings in fiscal year 2025. That equates to $28,864 in diversion savings for each participant served and $10.23 in savings for every dollar invested.
Separate Georgia research conducted by the Carl Vinson Institute of Government estimated an average economic impact of $25,921 for each adult accountability-court graduate studied in fiscal year 2022.
These are accountability-court figures, not RED Ed® results. But they demonstrate an important principle already established in Georgia: effective intervention can produce measurable economic value while advancing public safety.
That value goes beyond the cost of administering the justice system. Georgia’s research has examined benefits associated with reduced recidivism, avoided victimization and foster-care costs, healthcare savings, community service, program fees and state income taxes generated by working graduates.
PTID offers an opportunity to pursue similar objectives earlier in the criminal justice process.
For appropriate participants, successful pretrial intervention can address criminogenic needs before traditional adjudication and deeper justice-system involvement. Jurisdictions retain authority over eligibility, supervision, program requirements and successful completion.
Our approach can be summarized in three words:
Assess. Intervene. Measure.
Assess individual needs. Provide meaningful intervention. Measure whether progress occurred.
Education is central to that process.
Someone who develops emotional intelligence may handle conflict differently. Someone who understands financial responsibility may make better decisions under economic pressure. Someone equipped with a résumé, interview skills and workplace expectations has a better opportunity to obtain meaningful employment.
That last point matters economically.
A successful participant should not merely represent an avoided government expense. The greater opportunity is helping someone become an employed, taxpaying and productive member of the community.
Public safety and fiscal responsibility therefore do not have to be competing objectives.
Technology also allows jurisdictions to pursue these goals with greater efficiency. RED Ed® integrates participant progress, compliance monitoring, risk assessment and outcome measurement within one platform, giving jurisdictions greater visibility while reducing administrative burden.
This is not about replacing accountability with leniency.
It is about asking more from our criminal justice system.
My life could have followed a very different path. I know because I was living it.
Education helped interrupt that trajectory.
After more than a decade working in this space, I believe Georgia should continue exploring approaches that combine accountability, rehabilitation, workforce development, fiscal responsibility and measurable outcomes.
When an appropriate individual can be held accountable, equipped to become a productive member of society and given the tools to avoid future criminal behavior, everyone has an opportunity to benefit—the participant, the justice system, taxpayers and the community.
Sometimes improving public safety is not simply about what happens inside the courtroom.
It is about what happens after someone walks out of it.
