>> The Cook County State's attorney has reversed course and is now diverting first time nonviolent gun cases to the restorative justice community courts in these courts, young people with nonviolent charges are sent to an alternative program with the charge dismissed upon completion.

The move comes nearly a year after states attorney Eileen O'Neill, Burke instructed her office not to divert gun possession cases to the restorative justice courts, which gutted the courses.

Caseload our Blair Paddock joins us now with more now.

Blair, what we know about why the state's attorney's office reversed its decision here.

Yeah.

So they told me that they do believe in gun possession case is going to the rjc seas.

>> But they took issue with how the gun possession cases are being handled in a previous iteration of the courts.

So they said that they weren't confident in the gun possession, education that was being provided to participants.

And there wasn't a process to get a firearm owner identification card that they saw was streamlined.

So now those cases are being sent back to the RJ CCS starting earlier this month.

And they said that there's more robust going education provided to participants and now participants can start the application for a FOID card while they're currently in the program and then received upon completion previously, they had to wait until they wouldn't even start the FOID card application process.

And for folks who aren't familiar with them, how exactly do these courts work?

Yeah.

So they started in 2017 as an alternative to incarceration for young people.

So they taken possession cases.

Some property related cases, drug possession cases and they get community together.

The person who was harmed in the cases where there is a person harmed and they look at, you know, what harm was done.

They provide social services folks like job training, counseling, mentorship and upon completion, they can get the charge wiped from the record.

It specifically for young people in a suburban Sauk village, Avondale Englewood and North Lawndale and was the program's.

So in those neighborhoods right now and, you know, with certain kinds of cases, are there any efforts underway to expand eligibility?

There's definitely a want to expand eligibility.

So I spoke with Judge Patricia Sprout.

She's overseas than Rick Lawndale RJ CC and she would like violent cases to start to come to the rjc The PCs office public defender's office said that they would also like expansion in the types of gun possession, but gun possession case is being seen so they would like cases involving guns without serial numbers or guns with certain attachments to start make their way, making their way to the Rjc All right.

Very interesting program where Paddack thank