Search results
- Diversion programs focus on root problems. These programs recognize that incarceration will not solve homelessness, job and food insecurity, substance use disorders, or other factors that contribute to harm. Working to remedy these problems improves community safety and the health of the community in the long-term.
www.vera.org/diversion-programs-explained
People also ask
What is a 'diversion' in criminal justice?
Is diversion a problem-solving model?
What are the different types of diversion?
What is a criminal diversion model?
What is a'social justice' model of diversion?
What is a diversion program?
Introduction. Point-of-arrest youth diversion gives young people the chance to avoid both formal criminal justice processing and a criminal record, in return for the completion of community-based interventions. Youth diversion is an increasingly well-embedded practice in England and Wales: research by the Centre for Justice Innovation in 2019 ...
- 226KB
- 10
Abstract. This article draws on historical understandings and contemporary models of diversion in order to develop a critical framework and agenda for progressive practice.
- About the Centre for Justice Innovation
- Summary
- What is pre-court diversion?
- The evidence base on pre-court diversion
- Summary
- Background to the toolkit
- The evidence for pre-court diversion
- Promising practice principles
- How we can help
- Promising practice principles
- Defining pre-court diversion
- Who the toolkit is for
- Further support
- Does pre-court diversion work?
- Who is likely to benefit from pre-court diversion?
- Why is pre-court diversion likely to work?
- Promising practice principles
- Implement safeguards against net-widening
- Keep eligibility criteria broad to ensure referrals
- Ensure the decision to refer is ‘bounded’
- Ensure referral processes are swift and simple
- Ensure participants understand pre-court diversion processes and conditions
- Ensure participants understand the implications of participation, especially on their criminal record
- Deliver effective and ongoing training for police oficers
- Promote informed choices about desistance through navigators
- Involve navigators early and continuously through the intervention
- Respond to non-compliance
- Provide light touch needs assessments to target interventions
- Guard against over-dosing
- Deliver responsive and need-focused interventions
- Emphasise procedural fairness in your work with victims
- Ensure the scheme’s vision and aims are shared by all partners
- Map and develop relationships with local support services
- Implement effective data collection
- Formalise a feedback process
- How we can help
- Practice support to existing schemes
- Join our community of practice
The Centre for Justice Innovation seeks to build a justice system which all of its citizens believe is fair and effective. We champion practice innovation and evidence-led policy reform in the UK’s justice systems. We are a registered UK charity. Written by: Claire Ely, Bami Jolaoso, Carmen Robin-D'Cruz and Vicki Morris. We would like to thank all ...
This toolkit is for any practitioner who is involved in, or considering creating, a pre-court diversion scheme for adults in contact with the criminal justice system.
Pre-court diversion seeks to offer a swift and meaningful response to low-level offending. Pre-court diversion operates in two ways: first, people who are arrested and likely to receive a formal out of court disposal can be diverted into either a less serious out of court disposal or an informal disposal; second, people who have been arrested and a...
Our briefing, on the evidence for pre-court diversion for adults (published in April 2019), outlined that, when implemented properly: there is strong evidence internationally, and moderate evidence from the UK, that pre-court diversion reduces reoffending; there is moderate evidence that pre-court diversion reduces the costs to the criminal justice...
What is pre-court diversion? The evidence base on pre-court diversion
Defining pre-court diversion Policy and practice context Further support Our work on pre-court diversion Who the toolkit is for
Does pre-court diversion work? Who is likely to benefit from pre-court diversion? Why is pre-court diversion likely to work? Further research
Eligibility criteria Referral into diversion Procedural fairness Oficer training Case work Programming Victim involvement Partnership working Monitoring and evaluation
Practice support to existing schemes Join our community of practice
As the evidence base on pre-court diversion for adults provides only limited guidance on what practice works best, there is not a settled consensus on which specific pre-court diversion models and strategies are most effective. Nonetheless, we seek to offer practical advice that is (i) evidence-led regarding promising practice, and (ii) based on ad...
The term ‘diversion’ describes a wide range of models across the criminal justice system, from initiatives that aim to keep ‘at risk’ people out of the criminal justice system altogether, to those that provide an alternative to custody. As we define it, pre-court diversion offers a swift and meaningful response to low-level offending by reducing th...
This toolkit is for any practitioner who is involved in, or considering creating, a pre-court diversion scheme for adults in contact with the criminal justice system. As we worked with areas, we encountered a demand for more detailed guidance on the particulars of how schemes should operate to maximise their eficacy. Many practitioners told us that...
Accompanying the toolkit is an offer of one-to-one support for your scheme. Practitioners who might benefit from this enhanced support are those considering creating new adult diversion schemes, or those running existing schemes in need of development. More details regarding our support can be found in section four.
Due to the renewed interest in pre-court diversion and the apparent diversity of practice, the Centre for Justice Innovation undertook a rapid review of the published research in this area. In Pre-court diversion for adults: an evidence briefing, we sought to answer the following questions: What is the evidence that pre-court diversion works? Does ...
We also found wider evidence on what works to reduce reoffending that suggested that pre-court diversion may be particularly applicable for specific groups of people, most notably vulnerable women, young adults, and people with substance misuse and mental health illnesses, although there is little specific UK evidence that isolated the impact of pr...
While the evidence base on pre-court diversion in England and Wales is promising but limited, wider reflection on the practice we have witnessed and documented, alongside an understanding of the evidence base of what works to reduce reoffending, offers some clues as to why pre-court diversion is likely to work better than the alternative of a more ...
From our review of existing practice, we have identified a number of promising practice principles which we consider will foster effective practice. These principles, which draw on both the evidence base and the insights of frontline practitioners, are a ‘first draft’: intended to be a useful guide but to be adapted and amended as more research bec...
As we have seen, one of the reasons pre-court diversion is likely to produce better outcomes than more formal sanctions is that it avoids net-widening. It is worth highlighting that the Ministry of Justice’s two-tier out of court disposal pilot evaluation highlighted the dangers of net-widening within out of court disposals.24 It showed that, contr...
There is some evidence from existing schemes that overly strict eligibility criteria regarding the number and types of offences can lead to very low referral numbers. One scheme reported that this put its funding and support from stakeholders in jeopardy. As such, when setting your eligibility criteria, reach out to other schemes that are more embe...
Practitioner discretion in determining eligibility for diversion may lead to inconsistency and therefore undermine the fairness and legitimacy of the scheme. Indeed, there is international evidence to suggest that such discretion may be inappropriately exercised resulting in racial disparities. Our work with youth diversion schemes suggests that wh...
To ensure pre-court diversion is offered in all appropriate cases, referral into a scheme should be made as simple and straightforward as possible for practitioners. A number of the pre-court diversion schemes we are in contact with reported initially having much lower referrals than forecasted, potentially due to a convoluted or unknown referral p...
In order to encourage compliance, schemes should take all reasonable steps to ensure participants understand the process of pre-court diversion. We found examples whereby schemes made efforts to ensure the pre-court diversion process was clearly and simply explained to participants. Operation Turning Point had a police script, which custody oficers...
Schemes should also explain the full criminal record implications of participation in pre-court diversion to people. It is important that the implications of the de-escalated outcome are understood as well as the outcome in the case of non-compliance. For example, although Outcome 22 has a less serious implication than, say, a caution, it is still ...
We found schemes worked well when police oficers were offered training which introduced the diversion scheme and its processes clearly and practically with locally-specific information on situations where diversion schemes might be appropriate. In some of the examples of good practice we saw, initial case management and police system training provi...
Research suggests the need for high-quality relationship and structuring skills in criminal justice staff. The former result in relationships that are ‘respectful, caring, enthusiastic, collaborative, and valuing of personal autonomy’, while the latter include prosocial modelling, effective use of authority, problem solving and motivational intervi...
Effective schemes that we have worked with all commonly involve their navigators at the earliest opportunity in order to prioritise the importance of building pro-social relationships from the offset. Recognising that a continuous, positive relationship between the participant and the navigator supports desistance,35 one scheme has strategically on...
All existing schemes, as well as those interested in setting up a new scheme, can become a member of our community of practice. Those interested in learning more about pre-court diversion will receive: Access to resources: Including evidence summaries, template documents and presentations; Networking opportunities: Helping you to build contacts of ...
All existing schemes, as well as those interested in setting up a new scheme, can become a member of our community of practice. Those interested in learning more about pre-court diversion will receive: Access to resources: Including evidence summaries, template documents and presentations; Networking opportunities: Helping you to build contacts of ...
All existing schemes, as well as those interested in setting up a new scheme, can become a member of our community of practice. Those interested in learning more about pre-court diversion will receive: Access to resources: Including evidence summaries, template documents and presentations; Networking opportunities: Helping you to build contacts of ...
All existing schemes, as well as those interested in setting up a new scheme, can become a member of our community of practice. Those interested in learning more about pre-court diversion will receive: Access to resources: Including evidence summaries, template documents and presentations; Networking opportunities: Helping you to build contacts of ...
All existing schemes, as well as those interested in setting up a new scheme, can become a member of our community of practice. Those interested in learning more about pre-court diversion will receive: Access to resources: Including evidence summaries, template documents and presentations; Networking opportunities: Helping you to build contacts of ...
All existing schemes, as well as those interested in setting up a new scheme, can become a member of our community of practice. Those interested in learning more about pre-court diversion will receive: Access to resources: Including evidence summaries, template documents and presentations; Networking opportunities: Helping you to build contacts of ...
All existing schemes, as well as those interested in setting up a new scheme, can become a member of our community of practice. Those interested in learning more about pre-court diversion will receive: Access to resources: Including evidence summaries, template documents and presentations; Networking opportunities: Helping you to build contacts of ...
All existing schemes, as well as those interested in setting up a new scheme, can become a member of our community of practice. Those interested in learning more about pre-court diversion will receive: Access to resources: Including evidence summaries, template documents and presentations; Networking opportunities: Helping you to build contacts of ...
All existing schemes, as well as those interested in setting up a new scheme, can become a member of our community of practice. Those interested in learning more about pre-court diversion will receive: Access to resources: Including evidence summaries, template documents and presentations; Networking opportunities: Helping you to build contacts of ...
All existing schemes, as well as those interested in setting up a new scheme, can become a member of our community of practice. Those interested in learning more about pre-court diversion will receive: Access to resources: Including evidence summaries, template documents and presentations; Networking opportunities: Helping you to build contacts of ...
All existing schemes, as well as those interested in setting up a new scheme, can become a member of our community of practice. Those interested in learning more about pre-court diversion will receive: Access to resources: Including evidence summaries, template documents and presentations; Networking opportunities: Helping you to build contacts of ...
All existing schemes, as well as those interested in setting up a new scheme, can become a member of our community of practice. Those interested in learning more about pre-court diversion will receive: Access to resources: Including evidence summaries, template documents and presentations; Networking opportunities: Helping you to build contacts of ...
- 354KB
- 20
Feb 3, 2020 · This article draws on historical understandings and contemporary models of diversion in order to develop a critical framework and agenda for progressive practice. The argument essentially revolves ...
- Roger Smith
- 2021
Diversion from prosecution is a process by which the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) are able to refer a case to social work – and their partners – as a means of addressing the underlying causes of alleged offending when this is deemed the most appropriate course of action.
Diversion, any of a variety of programs that implement strategies seeking to avoid the formal processing of an offender by the criminal justice system. Although those strategies, referred to collectively as diversion, take many forms, a typical diversion program results in a person who has been.
Jan 23, 2024 · Diversion could be conceptualized in terms of a reduction of the severity of the sanction applied in criminal justice proceedings, such as the replacement of custody with a community-based alternative, or in terms of a decision not to prosecute someone for a particular offense.
