Not that this is much of a surprise to me. I figured it wasn't going to be that easy for people to just show up and blow it off. This definitely makes it more like an indoctrination program, since a person is going to be expected to learn the religion for a year, whether they agree with it or not.
I'm not certain that they need agree with the teachings or not. The idea seems to be that other ideas should be introduced into the young criminals mind, the sort of teachings and beliefs which underpin the foundations of the United States and other democracies. It would be interesting to see a study on whether young people attending Church regularly committed more crimes than those who didn't
Even offering other alternatives such as community service still does not change the issue that those who already attend church regularly are going to be getting away with a crime as if it didn't happen, since such a "punishment" really wouldn't change their lives at all except maybe adding a test into it every so often, which they most likely have the answers for anyway.
Perhaps those attending Church on a regular basis would have to find alternative punishment. This is not a major stumbling block.
And deciding to go through with this program will cost them money in court battles because I guarantee that someone, most likely the ACLU, will challenge this program.
The ACLU is already involved and their argument is "Even if the city offers other sentencing alternatives that are comparable to Operation ROC, which is far from clear, the First Amendment still prohibits the government from becoming entangled in core religious exercise, which includes attending church,"
When they cannot find a specific mention in the Constitution they tend to just make it up, as they did here.