When he was 14, Citizenship and Public Service (CPS) Scholar Dean Ladin got involved with a local Teen Court in his high school in Chicago. As a student volunteer on the Teen Court, Ladin had the chance to hear juvenile cases as a member of an all-student jury.
After seeing the successes of his high school program, Ladin was interested in starting a similar program for high school students in the Tufts area. In his freshman and sophomore years, Ladin began exploring the idea, reaching out to the Somerville Police Department and the Middlesex DA’s office to learn what programs already existed and to determine the needs of local law enforcement.
After partnering with the DA’s office, he realized that the new program would have to be different then his original concept in order to work.
“We saw that the major flaws were in participants, police involvement, and follow-up,” said Ladin, who is now a senior. “With these issues in mind, we decided that having a more centralized stream of information was key.”
Ladin continued to meet with local law officials, discussing, testing and improving the program. With this collaboration, in his junior year Ladin was able to implement a Juvenile Diversion Program for Middlesex County.
With each case referred to the program, Ladin centralizes the process; reading the police reports, talking with police officers, families, and the juvenile’s school, and then meeting with the teens themselves. Additionally, Ladin has reached out to local non-profit organizations, building partnerships and finding opportunities for juveniles to complete community service.
Since he started working on the Diversion Program, Ladin has seen countless of juveniles and has worked with a dozen families through the Cambridge Courthouse. Throughout his junior year, Ladin helped bring the program to new cities, eventually seeing it expand to be County-wide. Taking the project on again his senior year, Ladin has also taken charge of all diversion cases that come in and out of the Cambridge Courthouse and has continued to help the program grow.
“It's a lot of work, but it's awesome to have an entire case load to look over, and to be the one who is able to assess each juvenile's needs through a sentence, and give him/her one that will be most impactful in his/her life,” the Political Science major said. “There is a constant flow of new cases and closing old cases,” he explained. Despite the amount of work, Ladin said that he is glad to see how the Diversion Program helps kids from all different backgrounds.
“It's great to see the kids who understand what an amazing opportunity the Diversion Program is, and who take their sentences in stride, but the opposite types of kids are also great, because they are the types of kids that we need to help the most,” he said. “Most of the time they have no structure or direction, and need a hand to guide them.”
“It's an opportunity like this that we are able to assign really positive community service in their lives and to give them the resources through different classes and programs to become stellar citizens in society,” he added.
With the program’s success, Ladin is looking into expanding the Diversion Program to other court systems throughout the country.
“Since I’ve taken on this project, we’ve begun looking into expanding the project to other places, including the Woburn Courthouse,” Ladin explained. “They absolutely love what we have done and have been able to accomplish in Cambridge, so we should be getting a permanent system set up there soon.”
Ladin has also begun planning for May, when he will graduate. To continue the project’s growth and success, he has teamed up with another CPS Scholar who will begin working on the project after returning from abroad.
“During the next semester, I'll be able to show him the ropes and teach him what he needs to know in order to take over my position once I leave,” Ladin said. “My strong hope is that this project will continue for years to come.”
When he’s not working on his project, Ladin is involved in other ways in the CPS Scholars program. As the co-chair for the Scholar Advisory Board, Ladin serves as a representative for the Scholars with Tisch College staff and Tisch College Board of Advocates board members.
