INTRODUCTION
Meet T.L. She is sixteen years old and her mom died from a drug overdose when she was a child. T.L.
then lived with her physically and emotionally abusive aunt until she was eleven. From there, she lived in 15-
20 foster homes. T.L. has a one-year-old son. The child’s father and his family took the baby, who was
admitted into the hospital with a lung condition. When T.L. asked when she would be able to visit her son,
T.L.’s social worker said she had to wait two months until her next court date for a visitation. “So I went
AWOL to see my baby…I just wanted to see my baby” (Juvenile In Justice, 2016). Because of this, T.L. is in
custody for dependency and delinquency charges.
If the Juvenile Justice System (JJS) shifts its focus from punishment to the individual needs of the
juvenile, not only the child, but society will be better off. When we commit children to a residential
facility, we throw them into an impractical environment that proves ineffective for rehabilitation (Russell,
2017) (Farn, 2018). Instead, diversion meets the children where they are- in a literal and figurative sense by
keeping juveniles connected to their family and community while addressing the specific needs of the child.
Community goals of public safety and lower recidivism for juvenile offenders can best be reached through
diversion programming for nonviolent felony offenses, as opposed to detention or commitment dispositions.
A comparative analysis was conducted across social factors, program effectiveness [recidivism], and cost to
highlight the stark contrast between diversion and commitment programs.
“For these are all our children. We will profit by, or pay for, whatever they become” – James Baldwin.
According to the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), on any given day, there are
around 45,567 youth being held in a residential facility nationally (2016). Around 200,000 youth are released
per year from a residential facility (Youth, 2018). Unfortunately, more than half of the youth released from
these facilities will be back to the same facilities within a year (Youth, accessed 2018). Within commitment,
juveniles are subject to overcrowding, physical and sexual violence, trauma, and even risk of suicide (OJJDP,
2016). Society needs to find more effective rehabilitative strategies for juveniles to address the needs of this
vulnerable population.
The goal of this research is to expand the use of existing diversion programs for juveniles to support
a wider variety of charges, including certain non-violent felony offenses. Traditionally, these felony offenses
would result in a juvenile probation or commitment disposition. Diversion is a less expensive and more
rehabilitative alternative to reduce the likelihood of juvenile recidivism and prevent a criminal
conviction on a juvenile’s record.
More specifically, the purpose of this capstone is to simultaneously reduce recidivism rates among
non-violent, felony juvenile offenders and reduce the costs to taxpayers associated with committing these
youth. Diverting more non-violent felony juvenile offenders from commitment would accomplish these goals.
Another aim of this capstone is to mandate diversion for appropriate non-violent felony juvenile offenders
and give children the opportunity to keep their record free of criminal convictions by completing a diversion
program. Diversion should not only be an option for first-time, non-violent felony offenders, it should be a
mandatory consideration due to diversion’s proven effectiveness in reducing juvenile recidivism,
rehabilitating youth, lowering cost, and preventing a child’s criminal record. It is simply in the best interest of
the child, which was the original intent of the juvenile justice system at its inception in 1899.
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