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Task force backs diversion and restitution options, asks fiscal check on retail‑prosecutor funding
Summary
Members recommended strengthening diversionary responses — community court, restorative conferencing and restitution — and asked staff to verify how a retail license fee is currently routed to a retail prosecutor and whether the office’s focus matches that funding.
Task force members discussed expanding diversionary responses to low‑level retail crime and ensuring retailers receive measurable outcomes without requiring staff time in court.
Several participants urged the task force to explicitly reference successful programs such as Wilmington's community court and the Delaware Center for Justice’s restorative conferencing, and to note People's Place (Kent and Sussex County) as a similar program. One member said community court currently operates on grant funding and cannot expand without additional, permanent funding.
"Both all of our diversion programs in the state of Delaware include restitution as a possibility of an accountability measure," a committee member said, arguing diversion can resolve cases early, secure restitution and connect defendants to services.
On funding, members discussed a statutorily created retail‑prosecutor position supported by a retail license fee. One participant said the fee pool generated "over a half $1,000,000" that supports a prosecutor and an administrative position but questioned whether that office's work is sufficiently retail‑focused given competing DOJ priorities. The Chair asked staff to check budget flows with OMB, DOJ and the attorney general’s office so the task force can accurately describe how funds are used and whether resourcing needs to change.
Members agreed to combine community court, restorative conferencing and other diversion models into a consolidated diversion recommendation and to draft language calling for evaluating funding stability and restitution mechanisms to benefit retailers and defendants.
The task force did not vote on these recommendations and will review revised language circulated by staff before the next meeting.
