Program Overview
Contact Information
During the 1994 session of the Virginia
General Assembly, the Comprehensive
Community Corrections Act and the Pretrial
Services Act was enacted to enhance
community
corrections
across
the
Commonwealth of Virginia. As a result, Blue
Ridge Court Services was established on July
1, 1995 to provide community corrections
services to the courts of the Central
Shenandoah Valley.
For more information concerning Blue
Ridge Court Services and program
offerings, please contact:
The mission of Blue Ridge Court Services is
to provide effective sentencing alternatives to
the judiciary and the local criminal justice
system in an effort to reduce jail
overcrowding, enhance public safety and
offer
remedial
and
rehabilitative
opportunities to local offender populations.
BRCS services, directed at local responsible
offenders, include:
I.
II.
III.
IV.
V.
VI.
VII.
VIII.
Local Probation Supervision
Pretrial Investigations / Supervision
Restorative Justice Services
Domestic Violence Programs
Home Electronic Monitoring
Re-entry Services
Drug Court
Therapeutic Docket Program
Blue Ridge
Court Services
David T. Pastors, Director
White Star Mill
125 South New Street
Staunton, VA 24401
Office 540-886-1008
FAX 540-886-8029
Blue Ridge Court Services Staff
David Pastors
Megan Roane
Tasha Harner
Andrew Lightner
Lynn Murphey
Alison Schofield
Debbie Walker
Luther Hite
Samantha Honig
Diana Fetterer
Sue Markley
Martin Schmid
Alayna Flory
Emma Swabb
Director
Assistant Director
Probation Manager
Probation Services
Probation Services
Probation Services
Pretrial Manager
Pretrial Services
Pretrial Services
Pretrial Services
Drug Court
HEM Services
Re-entry Services
Re-entry Services
Serving the Courts of
Staunton, Waynesboro,
Lexington, Buena Vista,
Rockbridge, Highland and
Augusta County
White Star Mill
125 South New Street
Staunton, VA 24401
www.staunton.va.us/brcs
Probation Services
Domestic Violence
Blue Ridge Court Services, under the authority of Va. Code
53.1 – 180, provides an array of local probation services to
the District and Circuit Courts of the Central Shenandoah
Valley. These services include local probation supervision,
community service monitoring, drug and alcohol screening,
referral for drug and alcohol treatment and referral for
employment counseling. Typically, offenders placed into
the local probation program by the court are required to
make restitution, pay court costs, perform community
service and be subject to random urine and breathalyzer
screens.
The domestic violence program works with the local
juvenile and domestic relations courts to identify, assess
and treat offenders who are before the court for
assaultive behavior on family members. Offenders
who are referred to Blue Ridge Court Services from the
JDR Courts are screened using a domestic violence
inventory to assess the severity of problem. Offenders
are then placed into one of three treatment groups to
address anger management, batterer prevention or
domestic violence issues. Upon successful
Pretrial Services
completion of treatment, the offender is returned
to court for final disposition.
Restorative Justice
The pretrial program has two primary goals:

To provide the local courts with defendant
background information so that more informed bond
release decisions may be made.

To provide supervision for defendants released from
jail prior to trial to ensure that they appear in court for
trial and comply with bond release conditions.
Drug Court
Our local drug court was founded in July 2002. The
mission of the Staunton, Augusta and Waynesboro Drug
Court is to reduce recidivism in drug addicted offenders.
This approach provides an effective system to process,
adjudicate and treat drug addicted offenders utilizing a
multidisciplinary team approach.
Key to this approach is the timely movement from arrest
through adjudication and placement into treatment
combined with intensive treatment, supervision and judicial
review.
The restorative justice program uses a community
corrections model in which the primary focus is on
restoring the victims of crime and restoring the
community while at the same time assisting the
offender to understand that crime has consequences
and to learn ways to avoid re-offending. This is
accomplished by bringing the offender and victim
together in a series of meetings moderated by a
citizens’ board. The end result of this process is a plan
by which the offender makes restitution to the victim,
restores the community and becomes involved in
activities designed to reduce further law violations.
Electronic Monitoring
The home electronic monitoring program provides the
local court system with an alternative to an offender
serving an active jail sentence in the local jail. Using a
GPS technology, offenders can be monitored under
house arrest on a variation of schedules that may allow
them to leave their homes only for the purpose of
going to work. Used in conjunction with random urine
screens and employment visits, HEM is an effective
tool for non-violent offenders who qualify.
Re-entry Services
The Blue Ridge Court Services Re-entry Program is
designed to assist individuals who have been recently
released from jail and/or court who are in need of
services in our community. We offer both group and
one-on-one sessions to address the needs of all local
offenders:
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


Employment Readiness Skills Group
Securing Photo Identification
Accessing Food, Housing, Clothing and
Transportation
Accessing Community Resources for Mental
Health or Substance Abuse
Therapeutic Docket
The Staunton-Augusta Therapeutic Docket was
established in 2014 as a post-plea, pre-adjudication
specialized court docket. This program employs a
problem-solving approach to court processing in lieu
of more traditional court procedures for certain
defendants with mental illnesses.
This twelve-month program combines prompt entry
into mental health treatment, case management by a
mental health clinician, supervision by a specialized
pretrial officer and bi-weekly Judicial reviews. The
ultimate goal is to identify those individuals who have
entered the criminal justice system with mental health
issues, divert them from jail into immediate treatment
and help them maintain a healthy and law-abiding
lifestyle.