THE ADOLESCENT DIVERSION PROJECT 2
Running Head: THE ADOLESCENT DIVERSION PROJECT 1
The Adolescent Diversion Project
Erin Bright
Introduction
The Adolescent Diversion Project is a strength-based initiative run by a university that diverts adolescents aged 13 to 15 from formal juvenile detention and provides assistance in the community. It also keeps these kids out of potential stigmatizing social situations. Take the juvenile justice system, for example. The University of Michigan State’s Adolescent Diversion Project began in 1976 in Ingham County, Michigan. Because there has been an increase in youth criminal activity and a demand for an alternative to save money, the juvenile system and community have been affected.
Originally, the idea of diversion originated from two theoretical reasons. The first theory of labeling argues that the handling of certain young people by means of the juvenile justice system will be more harmful than good since it accidentally marginalizes and banishes them for performing mediant acts that could be handled more adequately outside of the formal system. According to Akers, labeling theory “advances the idea that those branded or severely stigmatized as deviants are prone to take on a delinquent self-identity and become more deviant than less deviating from it.” A “deviant,” “criminal,” or “young offender” label may influence young people’s definition of themselves and society’s perception of them and influence their future actions and dictate societal roles.
On the other hand, the differential theory of associations argues that the system involves young people who are antisocial to their delinquent classmates. The exposure and brotherhood to more mature adolescents and adults are believed to have a criminogenic impact, enhancing the likelihood of reoffending young people. By limiting young exposure and interaction with the judicial system for kids, diversion programs are designed to reduce their impacts as deviant and decrease their chances of associating with criminal peers and taking antisocial conduct.
Lately, the progressive view in youth justice also indicates that most young people grow because of offenders since they are a short-term, natural part of their adolescence. Adolescence is a time between childhood life experiences and maturity marked by individual identity and experimentation, and risk-taking activities. For most young people, this exploratory phase ends when their unique identity is defined, and only a tiny proportion of young people continue to conduct themselves like an adult. However, diversion programs, focusing on minimum involvement, are compatible with the notion that the youth justice system can promote a prosocial, successful transfer to an adult and hold young people responsible for their antisocial behavior.
The University’s psychological department operates the ADP. Psychology undergraduate students engage in a two-semester course so that they may get training in diversion work and acquire structural mentorship eight hours a week. Students or people volunteers get eight weeks’ training in specific behavioral methods and advocacy, followed by intense eighteen-week monitoring throughout their work with those kids referred to in the juvenile court system’s Intake Division. This initiative is an 18-week intervention, with volunteers staying at home for young people, schools, and communities for six to eight hours each week. The caseworkers (volunteers) work with the young people one at a time to provide youth with services specific to their needs. They concentrate on strengthening the abilities of young people in many areas, including family relations, problems in school, jobs, and extracurricular activities. The workers also show young people how to use the funds after the program has ended. The first 14 weeks are the active phase, in which the volunteers take their time every week and offer direct support to the young person in their efforts to promote behavior and advocating. The last four weeks of the program are follow-up, and the volunteers spend less time helping the young people every week, but the job of volunteers is a consultant who prepares the young to utilize all their methods and approaches after the program’s conclusion.
The population which was consulted comes from two different research studies. One was Davidson and colleagues, and one was Smith and colleagues. In the moderate industrial Midwest City, Davidson and colleagues (1987) performed an early assessment of the Adolescent Diversity Project (ADP) from autumn 1976 through spring 1980. The research examined the impact of different program intervention components. The study included 228 minors (although eight refused to participate). The population was 83% male and 26% minority, averaging 14.2 years of age. Participants were accused of a broad range of crimes involving persons, property, and status crimes. The most frequent offenses were theft (34%) and breakage (24%). After a preliminary hearing, adolescents were transferred from the local juvenile court. Juveniles have been randomly allocated to one of six conditions: action-focused in family condition (ACFF); condition of action (AC). Action condition condition-court setting (ACCS); condition of relationship (RC) (CC). No substantial variations in demographics, earlier arrest histories, court petitions, and self-reporting were seen across the groups.
On the other hand, the efficacy of the program was assessed by Smith and colleagues (2004) when it was reproduced in an urban setting. The program included a total of 395 young people. The sample was 84% male and was 14 years old on average. The kids were African Americans at 91%, and the majority (65%) were related to property crimes. Youth were allocated randomly for one of three conditions: service diversion (ADP), service-free diversion (warning and release), or normal treatment control. There were no major baseline differences across groups, with the exception of socioeconomic position. The main interest result was delinquency. Information on crime was gathered from young people using a 29-point scale evaluating unlawful and criminal behavior. The files of 44 criminal justice courts, the juvenile court, and the LEIN provided information on official crime. Data on the number of police interactions, number of petitions to the Court, the severity of the crime, and disposition have been gathered. The duration of follow-up was 12 months from the first reference. Repeated variance analyses were performed to assess effects by time (before, after, and after) and by precondition. No subgroup analyzes have been carried out.
There are two assessment results studies. Each one describes what occurred when the evaluation took place. The Diversion Project for Adolescents has three consequences for the community partners. The primary effect was that ADP made the neighborhood safer. It states that two and a half years after the program was started, young people who participated in the Adolescent Diversion Project are less likely to commit additional offenses than those on probation and did not get any particular charges from an academic volunteer. A 63% rate of school students in a second-year compared to a 22% rate of students in a controlled group. Second fiscal effect. Second fiscal impact. For every young person, this saved $5000.00. The community has saved 20 million dollars from the adolescent diversion project. The third effect, finally, was systemic. Research indicates from 77 to 86 that the court decided and forecast alternatives before and after the start of the ADP. It says that the initiative enabled the Court resources to be targeted more efficiently. I endorse this program for young people because it appears to have a good effect on the kids, keeping them out of trouble in school and helping society save money and remain safer.
Diversion is founded on the belief that the formal procedures and/or imprisonment of the systems have a detrimental effect and that alternatives such as abolition, dependency, and diversion are better for children to grow on a longer-term basis. Diversion programming provides the opportunity to correct the antisocial behavior of young people with the help of parents and the community instead of through the legal system in creating informal channels that remove young people from traditional treatment (usually people who have engaged in first-time offenses or status breaches). Diversion programs as an alternative to traditional processing are aimed at minimizing stigma, reducing enforced entry and unnecessary social control, reducing recurrence, providing non-existent youth resources, and linking them to broader Social care. Diversion programs will also reduce the probability of criminalization via role models and excellent colleagues, discipline, participation in schools, and an improvement in the functionality of teenagers.
Improvements and Conclusion
Diversion programs aim to separate young people from legal procedures in order to prevent the uttered and situational effects of the penetration of youth justice. As these activities are quite common and stay in existence, there are no widely accepted definitions or norms, and processes (Wong et al., 2016). Nevertheless, Mears and colleagues (2016) suggested that systematic records be collected on specific activities that comprise diversion programs, their number and effectiveness, and the extent to which each intervention impacts recurrence or other results. Furthermore, diversion practices begin to identify client characteristics that fit into their programs and integrate risk and need assessments into their models. These improvements may provide a few of the information sometimes missing to improve the kind, quality, and amount of services provided by youngsters to diversion initiatives and allow more uniform execution and accurate assessment of the impact of halfway houses on youth crime.
References
Wong, J. S., Bouchard, J., Gravel, J., Bouchard, M., & Morselli, C. (2016). Can at-risk youth be diverted from crime? A meta-analysis of restorative diversion programs. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 43(10), 1310-1329.
Wilson, H. A., & Hoge, R. D. (2013). The effect of youth diversion programs on recidivism: A meta-analytic review. Criminal justice and behavior, 40(5), 497-518.
Smith, E. P., Wolf, A. M., Cantillon, D. M., Thomas, O., & Davidson, W. S. (2004). The Adolescent Diversion Project: 25 years of research on an ecological model of intervention. Journal of Prevention & Intervention in the Community, 27(2), 29-47.
Mears, Daniel P., Joshua J. Kuch, Andrea M. Lindsey, Sonja E. Siennick, George B. Pesta, Mark A. Greenwald, and Thomas G. Blomberg. 2016. “Juvenile Court and Contemporary Diversion: Helpful, Harmful, or Both?” Criminology and Public Policy 15(3):1–29.
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