What Charges are Eligible for the ARD Program?
The Accelerated Rehabilitative Disposition (ARD) program is a pre-trial intervention program offered to certain first-time offenders in the state of Pennsylvania. Rather than face probation or a prison sentence, which leaves a permanent record that follows you forever, you can go through this program where your record will be wiped clean upon its completion. If you are eligible for the ARD program, this is a true second chance where you learn to be better and avoid letting one mistake ruin your life.
The ARD program isn’t necessarily the same for everyone. What is required of you depends on your crime. It can include regular drug testing, an anger management course, community service, counseling, and/or restitution. The rehabilitation portion of the program is supposed to reflect your charge so you can predict what it would be with some foresight.
Are you Eligible for the ARD Program?
But not everyone is eligible for the ARD program. Your charge decides what your program would be like, but it also decides your ARD program eligibility. If you’ve been charged with a violent crime–assault, manslaughter, sexual assault, robbery, negligence, endangerment, kidnapping, extortion, harassment, and more–you are not eligible for the ARD program.
This must also be your first recorded offense. The ARD program does keep track of whether you’ve been through the program before, though you don’t have to disclose this information to anyone else, such as potential employers. You cannot go through the ARD program in Pennsylvania more than once.
What Charges are ARD Program Eligible?
Even after meeting those two qualifications, not every crime is necessarily eligible for the ARD program. Most eligible crimes are misdemeanors. Certain white-collar crimes, due to their profound impact on others, are not applicable to the ARD program. Some non-violent crimes are not severe enough to necessitate the ARD program and usually don’t leave a serious permanent mark on your record.
What is ARD program eligible includes:
- Misdemeanor-level drug crimes – This includes drug possession of certain lower-classified drugs without the intent to distribute them.
- Check fraud – Creating, using, and/or distributing falsified checks to acquire, borrow, or replicate funds.
- Credit card fraud – The unauthorized taking, replicating, and/or use of someone else’s credit card information or account to make purchases.
- Forgery – Copying someone’s signature is illegal, but it depends on the circumstances and for what documents someone’s signature was forged. A forgery charge’s ARD status goes on a case-by-case basis.
- Petty theft – Taking someone’s property without permission, breaking into their home, or injuring them. Robbery involves stealing by force and would not count as petty theft, and is not eligible for the ARD program.
- Shoplifting – Stealing from a store while pretending to be a customer. This is similar to petty theft in that nothing was stolen by force or by breaking into someone’s establishment.
- Embezzlement – Stealing, hiding, or misappropriating someone else’s or an entity’s funds. The effect this has on other people, how much was embezzlement, where the funds went, and what they were for all affect someone’s eligibility for the ARD program.
- Driving-under-the-influence (DUI/DWI) – If you drive under the influence, and it leads to no one being harmed other than yourself and your own property, you are eligible for the ARD program. If you damage someone else’s property, but no one’s physical person, you might still be eligible.
- Vandalism/intentional property damage – This is intentional damage like graffiti, keying someone’s car, egging someone’s property, slashing someone’s tires, and/or defacing public benches.
Consult with the Attorneys at Mazzoni Valvano Szewczyk & Karam About Your Eligibility
Going through the ARD program can dramatically improve your options in life. Having a criminal record precludes you from several personal freedoms and work opportunities, from which you can’t recover. Consult with the Scranton criminal defense attorneys at Mazzoni Valvano Szewczyk & Karam about your eligibility.
