Pretrial - Front-End Intervention (Diversion)
Measuring for Results: Outcome and Performance Measures for Pretrial Diversion Field
"This publication outlines suggested outcome and performance measures and critical operational data for pretrial diversion programs. Its goals are to present clearly defined and easily calculable measures that pretrial diversion programs can use to gauge progress in achieving their mission and strategic goals, improve business decisions, and illustrate pretrial diversion’s value in an evidence-based criminal justice system. The suggested measures are compatible with established national pretrial diversion standards and appropriate for any program established as a voluntary option to traditional...
Municipal Courts: An Effective Tool for Diverting People with Mental and Substance Use Disorders from the Criminal Justice System
The opportunity for diverting offenders with mental illness and substance abuse disorders from the criminal justice system when they have their first appearance in a municipal court is explained. Sections of this publication include: introduction; Sequential Intercept Model (SIM); municipal courts-definition and caseloads; municipal courts as a venue for diversion of people with mental and substance use disorders; challenges to the use of municipal courts for diversion-case volume, time constraints and lack of leverage, and the mature of municipal courts...
First-Episode Incarceration: Creating a Recovery-Informed Framework for Integrated Mental Health and Criminal Justice Responses
"This report, modeled on promising approaches in the mental health field to people experiencing a first episode of psychosis, outlines a new integrated framework that encourages the mental health and criminal justice fields to collaborate on developing programs based on early intervention, an understanding of the social determinants that underlie ill health and criminal justice involvement, and recovery-oriented treatment."
Improving Responses to People with Mental Illnesses at the Pretrial Stage: Essential Elements
"This report introduces essential elements for responding to people with mental illnesses at the pretrial stage, including decisions about pretrial release and diversion. These elements encourage data collection not only to help individual communities, but also for future researchers who are dedicated to these important questions."
A Framework for Pretrial Justice: Essential Elements of an Effective Pretrial System and Agency
This document highlights the commitment of the National Institute of Corrections (NIC) to define and support evidence-based practices that improve decision-making at the pretrial stage of our criminal justice system, enhancing the safety of America’s communities and fostering the fair administration of pretrial release and detention. With the release of A Framework for Pretrial Justice: Essential Elements of an Effective Pretrial System and Agency, NIC and its Pretrial Executive Network helps inform the discussion on bail reform and pretrial justice...
Using Front End Interventions To Achieve Public Safety And Healthy Communities
The symposium highlighted promising law enforcement, prosecutorial, and judicial interventions at the pretrial stage and promoted dialogue among justice practitioners on how front-end interventions could fit within an evidence-based, harm reduction-focused criminal justice framework. As illustrated above, participants at the symposium learned about and considered various alternative approaches to increasing public safety and addressing health issues facing their communities. They also shared their experiences with-and perspectives on-implementing front-end interventions in their own jurisdictions.
A National Survey of Criminal Justice Diversion Programs and Initiatives (2013)
"The evolution of justice policy in the United States has been far from linear. The last several decades have seen dramatic shifts in the management of criminal justice populations across the country, especially with regard to drug policy. Through the early years of the “War on Drugs,” declared in the early 1970s by President Nixon, the fortification of laws and sanctions against the use of illegal drugs, combined with the criminal behavior that sometimes results from the drug-seeking component of addiction, and a host of other economic and social conditions, helped hold the roots of such criminality firmly within a...
After a Crime, the Price of a Second Chance (2016)
"As a first-time offender, Ms. Willis, 52, qualified for a big break: a program called pretrial intervention, also known as diversion. If she took 12 weeks of classes, performed 24 hours of community service and stayed out of trouble, her case would be dismissed and her arrest could be expunged, leaving her record clean."
Diversion Programs in America’s Criminal Justice System (2016)
"What is the best way to correct the behavior of lawbreakers, ensuring that they do not reoffend? For nonviolent and low-risk criminals, jail diversion programs and other forms of alternative sentencing could be a worthy solution."