8.1 What is diversion?

This chapter will discuss the official actions from the courts on individuals in the community, while they are under some court-imposed sanction; these individuals have been effectively “processed,” and sentenced by the criminal justice system, even if they are monitored in the community. However, there are large numbers of individuals that do not make it that far in the criminal justice system, due to some form of diversion. Diversion is not the same as community corrections – but it is presented in this chapter as an action that effectively keeps a person in the community.

Diversion is a process whereby an individual, at some stage, is diverted from continuing through the formal justice process. Diversion can come as early as initial contact with a law enforcement officer if they exercise their discretion to not arrest and thus place the individual in the criminal justice system. At this point, diversion might take the form of a verbal warning, a warning ticket, or merely a decision by the officer to not start a formal ticket or citation. Similarly, prosecutors may decide not to charge an individual on the condition that they enter into some kind of rehabilitative program. A judge may also make such a decision in lieu of a judgment or as a condition of a judgment. An example of this would be if your friend Penelope Goins stole some items from the Mardi Gras supply store and she was arrested and appeared in front of the judge. The judge could sentence her to a sanction. However, in lieu of that sanction, the judge offers her the chance to complete a diversion program, effectively nullifying the judgment upon successful completion. See the City of Monroe, Louisiana’s Diversion Program here.

It is difficult to know the exact number of diversions that occur in the United States across the variety of places where diversion can occur – not least because decisions to divert are marked by the absence of a record. However, it is estimated that millions of diversions happen each year, at every stage of criminal justice processing. The below chart is a representation of the juvenile justice system, which mirrors the adult criminal justice system. Points of possible diversion are thus explicitly labeled in the below image.