Carvalho: Conover has 'decimated' diversion programs atPima County Attorney's Office
Jordanna Carvalho is a former diversion program manager in the Pima County Attorney’s Office.
Pima County Attorney Laura Conover has decimated diversion programming at the Pima County Attorney’s Office — programming vitally important to providing restorative justice as an alternative to prosecution for those who have committed nonviolent crimes.
According to deferred prosecution reports published on the Arizona Prosecuting Attorney’s Advisory Council website, PCAO in 2018-2019 (the year before the COVID-19 pandemic) processed 1,315 cases through 10 different adult diversion programs, and 321 juvenile cases through 18 Community Justice Boards led by 97 volunteers with a success rate for those youths of 94%.
Conover ran for election in 2020 on a platform of promising to expand diversion at PCAO and to add a new adult restorative justice diversion program. Like many employees then in the office, I was excited to work for her, especially because I am passionate about diversion and was making a career of facilitating various diversion programs. I was proud to have been the lead staff liaison to the CJBs that provide juvenile diversion programming and had recently assumed management responsibility for Adult Diversion Programs as well. While I thoroughly enjoyed my time under the previous administration, I was excited to have a new county attorney who shared a passion for diversion and made it a focal point of her campaign.