Diversion Programs in Criminal justice

Diversion Programs in Criminal justice

            Criminal justice involves sentencing offenders to imprisonment or other forms of punishment for crimes committed. However, the standard sentencing process is costly and does not have effective rehabilitation programs. Diversion programs come in to provide relief for the judicial services by changing the course of punishment to a more effective form of correction of the offender. Generally, diversion programs are done as a cost-cutting program or to help in lowering the intensity of the punishment given to an offender without changing the course of justice. Diversion programs may be formal or informal, and some examples include community service and restitution. Diversion programs aim at avoiding formal prosecution of offenders by the judicial systems and provide an alternative course of serving their punishment.

Diversion programs are developed to provide alternative methods of serving justice by offering a different way of punishing offenders. Although diversion programs are seen as a lenient way of punishing offenders, they provide an effective rehabilitation strategy to offenders and serve justice to the victims. Besides, formal judicial punishments only serve justice to the victims, while the offenders are made to suffer for their mistakes without a guaranteed improvement. For example, diversion programs have been applied successfully in the rehabilitation of drug addicts and dealers. Nonviolent drug dealers and addicts are put in drug courts that help them rehabilitate instead of holding them for long-term incarceration. Moreover, different forms of diversion programs have different advantages and disadvantages when applied to different target groups.

The implementation of diversion programs leads to either benefits or disadvantages to either the community or the offenders. One example of a diversion program is community service, where an offender is made to serve the community for some hours in response to the crime they have committed (Seroczynski et al. 2016). The offenders serve under no pay so that they can repay the community and the victims for the harm that they might have caused. Generally, community service is a better method of rehabilitating offenders as they grow with the community, and their change is accelerated by the interactions they make. Also, the strategy saves the legal services from unnecessary costs that might be incurred when the offenders are incarcerated, and the community and victims may not benefit directly from the punishment. However, community service has a set of disadvantages that have put it under criticism.

Critics have come out to bash out the authenticity of community service like any other diversion program. The judicial service power to punish offenders ensures that offenders suffer for their wrongs while the victims get justice. Punishments are expected to be severe so that the wrongs of the offenders can be considered repaid. Generally, victims believe that justice is served when the offender suffers to an equal measure owing to the crimes they committed. However, community service is seen as a lenient way of punishing criminals. Victims feel that the punishment that the offenders receive by serving the community is not equal to the harm that they could have served. Also, the community may decide to harm the offenders whenever they feel that justice was not served. Another diversion program that is common among judicial services is restitution.

Restitution is a form of diversion program where an offender is forced by the judicial service to restore the harm they have caused to a victim. Generally, restitution is common for economic offenses, which include stealing and property damage (Johnson et al. 2019). The community and victims benefit from compensation, while the courts are saved from high costs that may arise from other punitive measures. Restitution offers a chance for less punitive judges to administer justice without being unnecessarily harsh to the offenders. The advantages of restitution include the fact that the victim’s consequences for their crimes are lessened. Eventually, the judicial services gain confidence and trust from victims and seekers of justice. Although the restitution process appears to give the victim secondary consideration, the rehabilitation of the offender has a long-term advantage to the victim and the community. The move ensures that society does not suffer from similar crimes in the future. However, restitution has a set of disadvantages that leave room for criticism. First, restitution requires that the cost of damages be easily determined, which is not always the case. Secondly, restitution is lenient and does not subject offenders to the suffering that is similar to the harm they could have caused.

In sum, diversion programs provide alternative strategies of administering punishment to offenders in a bid to save on the need to offer direct punishment and incarceration. Diversion programs present less punitive judges with a chance to administer justice to victims and punish the offenders without necessarily being harsh to them. The different forms of diversion programs have advantages and disadvantages depending on the way they are implemented as well as the target group. The common criticism towards diversion programs is that they are lenient, and offenders do not suffer in equal measure as the harm they have caused.

References

Johnson, K. C., Davis, R. C., Labriola, M., Rempel, M., & Reich, W. A. (2019). An Overview of             Prosecutor-Led Diversion Programs: A New Incarnation of an Old Idea. Justice System           Journal, 1-16.

Seroczynski, A. D., Evans, W. N., Jobst, A. D., Horvath, L., & Carozza, G. (2016). Reading for   life and adolescent re‐arrest: Evaluating a unique juvenile diversion program. Journal of          Policy Analysis and Management, 35(3), 662-682.