Report: Expand Law Enforcement’s Role in Pre-Arrest Diversion of Youth

Divert­ing youth ear­ly in the juve­nile jus­tice process, such as at the ini­tial point of con­tact with law enforce­ment, is bet­ter at reduc­ing recidi­vism than for­mal court pro­cess­ing, accord­ing to new research by R Street Insti­tute. The Insti­tute assessed juve­nile arrest rates and diver­sion efforts in all 50 states and devel­oped a state-by-state overview and comparison. The research, fund­ed by the Annie E. Casey Foun­da­tion, looked at pre-arrest diver­sion led by law enforce­ment, which is also known as deflec­tion. It is one of many diver­sion mod­els that hold youth account­able for their behav­ior out­side of the tra­di­tion­al jus­tice system.