Juvenile Diversion and Net Widening: Toward a Clarification of Assessment Strategies

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This paper examines strategies for assessing the effects of diversion, a major juvenile justice reform movement. Issues relating to the diversion of youth from the juvenile justice system have been hotly debated for more than a decade. A central question has been whether diversion programs produce results opposite the intended purpose by widening the justice net, thus bringing more youths under state control than would otherwise be the case. The present study addresses the issue of net widening with data from a federally funded diversion project. Existing assessment strategies are discussed in relation to comparisons of youths diverted from, and youths processed through, traditional justice channels in a seven-county area of a southern state. Our findings offer conflicting evidence about net widening. Diverted youths are likely to be younger and less well known to official agencies than nondiverted youths. But diverted youths are also more likely than are nondiverted youths to be Black and to be serious o...