Pretrial Diversion: A Response to the Critics

Abstract

Some critics of pretrial diversion programs are contending that diversion programs expand the range of social control over alleged offenders; other critics are deprecating evaluation efforts as inadequate. While both these charges should be seriously considered, the skepticism surrounding diver sion programs and characterizing two papers recently published in this journal is ill-founded. The group opposing diversion's intervention in the lives of its clients charges that, rather than diverting people out of the criminal justice system, diversion is keeping more people in the system. A voluntary diversion program is examined which cannot be faulted on this basis. Those who demand that evaluation must be conducted by means of control and experimental group designs demonstrate little understanding of the difficulties presented in a natural setting. What we need are sound evaluation techniques that are workable in the community setting and constructive analyses to advance the knowledge of this relatively new field and to provide models for practitioners and decision makers.