Prosecutor-Led Diversion.

Intended to help youth avoid formal court processing and access appropriate rehabilitative services, juvenile diversion programs have recently grown substantially in number—with many diversion initiatives led entirely by prosecutors’ offices. It is important to regularly evaluate these programs to determine whether they are achieving their stated goals (e.g., reducing the number of youth formally processed in the legal system) in a fair and equitable way (i.e., benefiting youth equally across gender, racial/ethnic groups, socioeconomic status, residential location).

Examining and Evaluating Prosecutor-Led Diversion​​

The Juvenile Justice Research and Reform (JJR&R) Lab is partnering with District Attorney’s offices to examine their existing and newly reformed diversion programs. Previously, the Lab conducted an evaluation of the Philadelphia Youth Aid Panel (YAP) program, finding that most youth successfully complete the program and avoid re-arrest for at least a 3-year follow-up period. Additionally, findings related to the high number of court conditions imposed upon participating youth led to DA-generated policy changes limiting the number of conditions YAP panels could impose on a single youth.

The Lab also convened focus groups of young people who participated in prosecutor-led juvenile diversion in Philadelphia and their caregivers to understand what hinders and what promotes youths’ attendance and participation in community-based diversion programming. Based on these results, the Lab presented recommendations, requested by the DA's Office, for ways to reduce youth-identified barriers to participation and promote youths’ success during and after participating in diversion programming.

Currently, with support from Arnold Ventures, the JJR&R Lab is investigating the estimated impacts of recent prosecutor-led reforms to juvenile diversion policies in Philadelphia and in Montgomery County, an adjacent suburban-rural jurisdiction. In partnership with the District Attorney’s Offices in both counties, we are evaluating whether prosecutorial reform to diversion programming—in the form of expanded diversion eligibility criteria and additional connections to case management and other services for diverted youth—contributes to reductions in formal justice involvement, reduced racial disparities in diversion enrollment and completion, and improvements in individual short- and long-term outcomes for diverted youth.

In the Media

• Arnold Ventures - "Arnold Ventures Pledges $7.4 Million for Nationwide Prosecution Research"​

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