Adult Diversion Program

Adult Diversion Program

Introduction

The purpose of this study is to expand the boundaries of our knowledge by exploring some relevant facts and figures relating to “Adult diversion program for community corrections”. Diversion is designed for adults who are self-motivated and willing to confront their own legal behavior issues. In many cases the Diversion Program is the first contact adults have with law enforcement and the criminal justice system. Positive early intervention through the Diversion Program is an effective way to avoid future brushes with the law (Gendreau, 2000). The key determinant of an effective intervention is the ability of a service to produce a decreased rate of recidivism, or future criminal involvement, among participants. Effective programming is identified via an expanse of empirical literature on successful correctional practices.

The primary goal of Adult diversion program is to prevent, eliminate or reduce the rate of recidivism. Provide eligible offenders with an alternative to the traditional court process and a criminal conviction. Promote the collection of restitution for the victims of the crime, and reduce costs and caseload burdens on district courts and the criminal justice system (Gendreau, 2004).

Discussion & Analysis

History

In 1974, a controversial study was conducted by Robert Martinson, who declared that “nothing works” to rehabilitate offenders. This conclusion was based on his review of 200-plus evaluation studies where he reported only isolated evidence of program success. Given the social context of the 1970s and the subsequent emergence of a conservative political climate, the message that nothing works resonated, and the correctional field began to rely heavily on punitive strategies to manage offender behavior. Examples include increased rates of incarceration for non-violent offenders and emphasis on monitoring and surveillance strategies (Blumstein, 2001).

Yet emerging from Martinson's 1974 article was a series of rebuttals, including one from Ted Palmer, who argued that the better research question was “which methods work best for which type of offender under what conditions” (p. 150). This gave way to the leadership of Canadian psychologists Paul Gendreau, Don Andrews, Robert Ross, James Bonta, and others who began publishing key research that reinforced the importance of rehabilitative strategies (see Andrews & Bonta, 2006). These researchers explored what's known as the “black box” of treatment programs. The “black box” refers to what is happening inside the treatment programs, and what treatment characteristics are associated with improved outcomes. It was the research from Canadian scholars, particularly Gendreau and Andrews that produced the theory of effective intervention. This theory is still relied upon to guide the field as to evidence-based correctional treatment strategies (Andrews. 2003).

Adult diversion program as Correctional Strategy

Certainly, Adult diversion programs are not the only strategy employed to help reduce recidivism among offenders. The correctional system also utilizes criminal sanctions such as incarceration (e.g., jails, detention centers, prisons, juvenile correctional facilities, community residential centers), supervision/monitoring (e.g., probation, parole, intensive supervision probation, electronic monitoring), and community restoration (e.g., fines, restitution, community service) to assist in decreasing the rate of criminal behavior. However, research by Gendreau, Andrews, and others has ...