Work in Lieu of Arrest (W.I.L.A.) is a civil citation program that affords first-time juvenile misdemeanor offenders an alternative to arrest while still providing immediate consequences. While many counties in Florida participate in this program, some collaborate with nearby groups to succeed in this style of program. The information below is from the Lake County WILA program. Contact your justice system to see if such a program exists in your area.
This program:
- Keeps the youth that pose no threat to the community out of the justice system.
- Reduces the cost of processing youth for misdemeanors that take time and resources away from the system.
- Focuses those limited resources on more serious offenses thus improving public safety.
Community Service Work Projects
WILA participants have packaged food for Kids Against Hunger, assisted a Veteran’s organization sort and move donations for their thrift store, maintained plots in a community garden (the produce of which is donated to food banks), painted and helped create a Butterfly Garden at Lake Idamere park, conducted community cleanups in Leesburg and Sorrento, cleaned high school football stadiums, and weeded and collected loose trash at the landfill.
Requirements for Successful Completion
To successfully complete the program, participants must work a minimum of 20 community service hours, spread across four Saturdays with a Sheriff’s Office supervised work detail. Work may be physically demanding and time-consuming, and takes away some of the free time which may have originally given the offender the opportunity to commit their crime.
For additional information about such a program in Lake County Florida, contact Djeff Ilere at 352-742-6509.
