It Takes a Village: Diversion Resources
for Police and Families
KAREN TAMIS • CYMONE FULLER

FROM THE CENTER
DIRECTOR
Although the U.S. has made significant progress in reducing the
number of youth in the juvenile
justice system, many communities have found that arrest and
incarceration still frequently
start with low-level misbehaviors—like skipping school, running away, or violating curfew—
that present little, if any, risk to
public safety.
While there are other diversion
strategies that aid police in
addressing the needs of these
young people, the solutions
discussed in this report are safe
and effective alternatives that
also allow families and communities to access services
and support without calling the
police. These programs are reorienting the juvenile justice
system away from punishment
and toward prevention—a shift
that can have large-scale, sustainable impact as communities develop a shared vision of
responding to youth in trouble
through services and support
instead of arrest and detention.

Krista Larson
Director, Center on Youth Justice

JUNE 2016

introduction
The police were called after J.B., age 15, was involved in a minor scuffle at a
park. Instead of immediately arresting J.B., who had been in trouble for fighting
many times, the police called the local crisis response program, a resource for
police and families to address emergent situations without arrest. A counselor
came to the park to meet with J.B. and his grandmother, and the police and
counselor determined that it was safe for them to leave the scene. Together, the
family and counselor decided what J.B. most needed to keep him out of trouble.
They created and monitored an action plan that encouraged J.B. to improve his
grades, join his school’s ROTC program, start attending a weekly counseling
group, and get involved in an extracurricular activity at school—working with
student concessions at basketball games. Throughout his time with the program, J.B. not only stayed out of trouble, but also improved his academic and
extracurricular connections to his school and established short- and long-term
goals for his education and career.

In an interview, one Oregon police officer stated that a new paradigm for
interaction is necessary, where police are able to connect kids with the
help they need and avoid negative encounters. “We know that the point
of contact between young people and officers is always the most volatile
point, where things usually break down—and it usually ends with a loss of
respect on both sides.”
Many communities are frustrated with how to respond to youth “acting out”—
running away from home, skipping school, violating curfew, or disobeying adults.
These behaviors can be part of normal adolescent development, compounded
by adolescents’ limited ability to control their impulses and react responsibly
to negative peer pressure. They may also be symptoms of greater challenges,
like family conflict, childhood trauma, or untreated mental health or educational
needs.1 Communities also struggle with how to respond to young people getting arrested for more serious actions like fighting and other events stemming
from family conflict. Youth arrested for these behaviors are frequently referred
to juvenile court and subject to punitive interventions far beyond the scope of
their behavior.2 Typical justice system responses, such as detention (short-term
custody during juvenile court processing) and placements in locked juvenile facilities, have serious negative impacts on youths’ mental and physical health, education, and employment, and do little to address the family instability or other
circumstances connected to the troubling behavior.3

“In many cases,
families dealing
with troubling
behavior unwittingly
send their children
into the system by
calling the police
when they feel they
have nowhere to
turn for help.”

Even when not detained, young people who are charged with an offense in
juvenile court could end up with a record that can have negative consequences
throughout their lives—affecting employment opportunities, applications for
public housing, the ability to obtain a driver’s license, access to higher education, and more.4 Youth who have contact with the justice system—even when not
“convicted” for any offense—still experience stigma associated with an arrest or
negative police contact.5
Further, these types of offenses disproportionately affect youth of color—thereby contributing to the racial disparities in our justice system. The rate of runaway
cases for black youth in 2013 was more than three times the rate for white youth.
Additionally, the rate of “ungovernability” cases (also known as incorrigibility or
being beyond the control of one’s parents) for black youth was more than twice
the rate for white youth, more than six times the rate for American Indian youth,
and 17 times the rate for Asian youth.6 These disparities do not reflect real differences in youth behavior, but rather the significant differences in the ways communities respond to that behavior depending on whether the youth involved
are white or are youth of color.7 For example, African American teenagers are
far more likely to be arrested than their white counterparts for similar offenses.8
Encountering the police directly is not the only way youth get involved with the
justice system. In many cases, families dealing with troubling behavior unwittingly
send their children into the system by calling the police when they feel they
have nowhere to turn for help.9 This often comes up in the context of fighting
within the home—either between youth and adults or between siblings—often
resulting in “adolescent domestic battery” charges.10 Police officers—required
to respond and wanting to help—are reluctant to leave a youth or his or her family in a crisis situation. In some jurisdictions, mandatory domestic violence arrest
policies, which were designed to address intimate partner violence, leave police
with no discretion in how they handle family conflict involving youth.11 Without
other options to ensure everyone’s safety, police officers often arrest and book
the youth into custody or must otherwise take time to identify and locate an appropriate guardian or school official to take responsibility for the youth.
These situations take police officers off the streets and away from patrol, sometimes for several hours at a time, which can cause frustration, especially when
they have limited access to services beyond arrest or detention to better connect youth to community-based support.12 In many jurisdictions, such support
does not exist.
The traditional strategy of arresting youth, however, as the primary response to
such situations is starting to change. We now know that the human brain continues to develop until a person is in their mid-20s and that young people under
that age are less able to consider the consequences of their actions, particularly
in emotionally charged settings and in the presence of their peers.13 As our understanding of adolescent development has evolved, along with evidence of effective interventions for youth, communities, including police, are changing how
they respond to youth “acting out.”14 They are increasingly recognizing the cost
in human potential of arresting and incarcerating young people for misbehavior,
and acknowledging that youth deserve second, third, and even fourth chances.

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IT TAKES A VILLAGE: DIVERSION RESOURCES FOR POLICE AND FAMILIES

THE BENEFITS OF DIVERSION FOR POLICE OFFICERS
Police officers routinely encounter and are called to respond to situations involving youth committing low-level offenses, fighting at home,
or other family issues, taking them away from traditional patrol. Reluctant to leave youth and their families in a crisis situation, officers are
often faced with difficult choices: to either ignore problem behavior or
criminalize it, neither of which resolve the situation or lead to appropriate solutions.
In many instances, these youth may have behavioral health issues to
which police officers in most jurisdictions have little training or support
to safely and effectively respond. When that is the case, youth have few
resources for help and treatment and police officers, increasingly and
unintentionally called on to be social workers and counselors, are subject to significant emotional and physical tolls.
Diversion programs provide police officers the opportunity to intervene
in a manner that is both helpful and effective, connect youth to appropriate services that resolve crisis situations, and return to patrol in a
timely manner.

Informed by interviews with stakeholders in the jurisdictions described below,
this brief highlights three types of programs, and examples of each, that respond
to misbehavior with early intervention and prevention—giving young people a
second chance before they reach the juvenile justice system. They include: (1)
juvenile assessment and resource centers; (2) crisis response programs; and (3)
Crisis Intervention Team for Youth (CIT-Y) programs. In each example described
here, states, cities, and towns across the country have developed strong partnerships among families, schools, social services, community organizations, and
law enforcement to identify youth and families who need help and then work
together to prevent and de-escalate crises and keep young people at home,
connected to their families and support systems. Policymakers in these jurisdictions are developing and implementing these programs to safely and cost-effectively divert youth from the justice system. Funding for most of these programs
started with grants or technical assistance from national reform efforts and continued with combinations of city, county, and state support.

Juvenile Assessment and Resource Centers
In Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana, a mother met with the assistant principal at her
son’s high school, looking for help. He was using substances frequently, leaving
home almost every night, and not attending school. The mother was highly concerned for her son’s safety, and visited the school to discuss whether it was possible to have her son picked up by law enforcement and committed to a psychiatric hospital—the only way she could think of to get help. Instead, the principal
suggested to the mother that she meet with staff from the local assessment and

VERA INSTITUTE OF JUSTICE

3

resource center. The family came in and, with a therapist’s assessment, discovered that the young man was willing to accept help. The staff found an inpatient
facility within an hour of the family’s residence and helped the family form a plan
without law enforcement involvement or the need for involuntary commitment.
To provide a better, third option to the limited choices police officers have to
either ignore problem behavior or criminalize it, many communities are creating
drop-in resource and assessment centers to serve as “diversion hubs” where
police officers, families, and school personnel can bring young people who are
engaged in low-level misbehavior (such as truancy, curfew violations, running
away, minor fighting, or property offenses) or who just need a safe place to go.15
Typically, these centers employ trained professionals—social workers, mental
health clinicians, and others—to assess the problematic behavior and circumstances and then connect youth and their families with services and support to
address the issue without involving the police.
When police are already involved, resource centers make it possible for officers
to address troubling behavior and return to patrol quickly, feeling confident that
they have helped young people and families get support.16 To that end, stakeholders are focused on opening resource centers in locations that are convenient
for law enforcement, but are also welcoming and accessible for families. Additionally, many centers are open around the clock, or at least during the afternoon
and evening hours, when youth are out of school.
THE MULTI-AGENCY RESOURCE CENTER IN LOUISIANA
In Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana, the Multi-Agency Resource Center (MARC) was
created in 2011 as a drop-in center accessible to officers—encountering youth
who need additional support and services—and parents and families of youth at
risk of getting arrested. Based on the unique circumstances of each case, some
end with a short talk with a counselor, while others involve a full assessment and
planning process. The MARC’s initial outreach efforts focused on making police
officers aware of the resource, but outreach efforts are now also directed at families. Between 2012 and 2015, the MARC saw a 150 percent increase in the number
of family walk-ins without police referral. The MARC’s leadership believes that
this increase demonstrates greater community awareness of the center as a resource that families can trust and use to support their children through challenging situations without relying on police intervention.

To provide the best recommendations for services and support, it is important to meet families
where they are by understanding their existing capacity and resources.

THE GRESHAM JUVENILE RECEPTION CENTER IN OREGON
In the spring of 2015, city and county leaders in Gresham, Oregon, decided to
join forces and collaborate on youth development and juvenile justice reform.
They saw the value and success of a reception center for youth in crisis in Portland, but because of the distance, Gresham police officers were not finding it an
efficient resource for runaways, out-of-school youth, and youth who committed

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IT TAKES A VILLAGE: DIVERSION RESOURCES FOR POLICE AND FAMILIES

low-level offenses. They recognized that the success of such a center depends
on creating a space that is both welcoming for youth—an issue youth emphasized during a focus group—and accessible for police. While many juvenile resource centers are only open to police officers, this reception center is noteworthy in that it will also be available to families directly.
Stakeholders—including the Gresham mayor’s office, Gresham Police Department, Multnomah County Juvenile Services Division, and community-based providers supported by a technical assistance grant from the National League of
Cities—worked together to address these challenges and are in the process of
opening a reception center in Gresham.

An accessible and welcoming location is key. Youth and families need to feel comfortable in the
space for the best chances of successful participation. When families and youth are in crisis, they
want to feel safe and know that they are in a place that will help them, not get them into more
trouble. The location should also be convenient and the process efficient for police officers,
allowing them to transport and sign youth into the center easily, without taking much time away
from patrol or other duties. Separate entrances for police and families or community members
may also help everyone feel comfortable accessing the center.

RESOURCE CENTER FOR POLICE AND FAMILIES IN NEVADA
With support from the National League of Cities, policymakers in Las Vegas,
Nevada, have been planning a resource center for law enforcement and families
for nearly two years, to open in fall 2016. Challenged by Southern Nevada’s
unique overlay of city and county governance structures, a wide range of stakeholders joined forces to develop and fund a local resource and assessment center to provide both diversion and intervention services for youth. The planned
center will accept referrals from law enforcement, families, schools, and others.
The effort aims to reduce the disproportionate arrest and detention of black
youth, a significant local concern, and is chaired by county officials, with support
from several other elected officials who are championing this project.

Crisis Response Services
The police were contacted to intervene after repeated conflict between a young
man and his mother escalated into physical intimidation against her. The police
called in a local crisis team to respond. The police and a therapist arrived at the
scene to assess the situation. The therapist first met with both mother and son
separately, and then together, to talk through what was happening and review
some coping strategies. The son admitted that he sometimes used his size to intimidate his mother when he was angry. He reported he was feeling much more
calm since talking with the therapist and agreed to use coping skills when feeling
angry or overwhelmed. His mother agreed to allow him to use these strategies
when needed. The police left the scene, confident the family was safe, and no
arrest was needed. The son was quickly connected with a therapist and psychiatrist for regular care. During a follow-up call with the mother, she reported:

VERA INSTITUTE OF JUSTICE

5

“Without all the services the therapist connected us with, it would be tragic. This
has been a blessing.” She reported that her son “is doing so much better now.”
A number of jurisdictions throughout the country have developed crisis response
systems to respond quickly to law enforcement, schools, families, and other
agencies needing immediate help—often by connecting families to behavioral
health services instead of emergency rooms and the justice system. Police
officers often respond to calls where there is no “arrestable” offense, but there
is a clear need for outside help to immediately de-escalate a volatile situation
and make connections to other types of support. Crisis response services can
also be used to identify and provide treatment for family issues, such as fighting
within the home. These services typically utilize trained case workers or therapists to respond quickly to police, family, or school calls, assess the situation,
either by phone or in person, and determine the best course of action, usually
by connecting youth and their families with community-based supports and case
management services.
THE HEARTLAND FAMILY SERVICE CRISIS MEDIATION TEAM IN
NEBRASKA
The Heartland Family Service Crisis Mediation Team (CMT) in Sarpy County,
Nebraska, began in April 2015 to provide immediate de-escalation and conflict
resolution services from licensed mental health therapists around the clock, 365
days a year. Police officers, probation officers, or juvenile detention officers call
the hotline when encountering a family confrontation or crisis, or when they have
nowhere to bring a youth after detention or a police stop, if home or school is
not a viable option. While the police remain on the scene, a licensed therapist
responds in person, meets with the youth and his or her family to obtain consent, assesses the situation, recommends potential services or resources, and
determines whether it is safe for the youth to remain at home. CMT interventions
ensure that youth in crisis are served in the least restrictive, most normative setting possible, and connect the family with community-based services in order
to avoid placing the youth in a hospital, protective custody, or detention. The
main goal of the program is to keep the family intact with safety measures in
place. Case management and follow-up services are provided and families are
connected with a statewide post-crisis referral program for ongoing support.
The program carefully tracks data and reports back to all stakeholders on how
effective it has been. While the CMT is just under a year old, it has conducted 90
face-to-face assessments, none of which led to juvenile detention. Further, the

Providing outcome data to stakeholders is critical. Sharing the progress and outcomes of program implementation with stakeholders is an important practice to fuel continued dedication
and investment in the program. For example, one program was able to demonstrate the amount
of time saved per call for police officers using a diversion program, which encouraged the continued commitment and financial support of stakeholders like the police department, district
attorneys, and city and county leaders.

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IT TAKES A VILLAGE: DIVERSION RESOURCES FOR POLICE AND FAMILIES

program saves police officers a lot of time—the average call time for a response
program was 76 minutes compared to the two to three hours it takes officers to
book youth into the detention center.

Follow-up is essential. The goal of all of these diversion efforts is to provide youth and their families with the services they need in the community. After resolving the initial crisis that led to law
enforcement involvement, stakeholders must design a follow-up system that ensures services
are being provided and helping to address the underlying issues. Law enforcement can also be
part of this follow-up, as evidenced by some police departments that hold “case conferences”
involving all affected parties, including youth, to check their current status, improve relationships, and support positive outcomes.

CHANGES IN YOUTH SERVICES AND ASSESSMENT IN ILLINOIS
When stakeholders in Peoria County, Illinois, analyzed their data on youth in
detention in 2010, for the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Juvenile Detention
Alternatives Initiative, they saw that police officers were frequently bringing
youth into detention when responding to calls about adolescent domestic battery or other family crises. Police officers were arresting and detaining youth
because they saw it as the best way to keep youth and their families safe during
a family crisis, even though the county was working to reduce the number of
youth in detention. To address these underlying issues at home, county leaders
made some changes. First, they decided to utilize the statewide Comprehensive
Community-Based Youth Services Program (CCBYS), to prevent young people
from entering either the child welfare or juvenile justice systems unnecessarily.
(CCBYS provides 24-hour crisis intervention services for youth, ages 10 to 17,
who have run away, been locked out by a family member, or who refuse to return
home after coming into contact with law enforcement.) Second, stakeholders
changed arrest and detention protocols to allow police to make referrals to a
community social services provider: the Children’s Home of Illinois. Parents may
also refer to this provider youth who have experienced behavioral problems but
who have not yet come into contact with law enforcement. Services are available
for up to three months and may include crisis counseling; mediation; short-term
placement; individual, family, and group counseling; recreation; skill-building;
advocacy; and linkage to other services.
In 2015, 80 percent of youth receiving services demonstrated improvement
on assessments from the time of intake through program exit. Additionally, 85
percent of youth referred to crisis intervention for Adolescent Domestic Battery
(ADB) had no further domestic battery contacts while receiving services. Further,
families are increasingly referring siblings and other relatives to the program
because of these successful outcomes.

VERA INSTITUTE OF JUSTICE

7

Invest in qualified staff. The Sarpy County, Nebraska crisis response program found that, compared to other response programs that do not use licensed therapists, hiring qualified clinical
staff to respond to every call is cost-effective and improves outcomes. The Sarpy County program reported fewer calls ending in arrest when therapists assessed a situation in person and
developed a rapport with youth, their families, and police.

Crisis Intervention Teams for Youth (CIT-Y)
“One day, in a high school computer lab, a teenager with autism refused to
leave his computer. The aide with him asked us, the school police, to come and
remove him forcibly, since she was unable to convince him to leave. Cops get
put in these situations where we know it doesn’t make sense and it will provoke
a negative reaction. They will get hurt. We will get hurt. Instead of going down
that path, I tried something different because of my training and experience with
adolescent crisis intervention and mental health. I knew there had to be an adult
in the building that this young person has a relationship with who might be able
to help. A teacher was identified who came in and convinced him to get up and
leave. We all ended up walking away.”
–school resource officer, Connecticut
Originating in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1988, Crisis Intervention Teams (CIT)
were designed as a training and collaborative approach for police officers to
safely and effectively address the needs of adults with mental illnesses, link them
to behavioral health services, and divert them from the criminal justice system
when appropriate.17 The CIT program is heavily focused on partnership and prevention—officers build relationships with people and families in their communities, allowing them to identify and assist individuals before a crisis occurs—and
can be helpful in many encounters between civilians and police, even beyond
the mental health context. Implementation of these programs varies, but the
primary model is focused on training for at least a portion of police officers in
each department. While similar to crisis response services, CITs function within
police departments, while crisis response services operate as an outside system
that works as a resource where police can ultimately hand off individual cases to
community-based programs.
Because of the success of CIT for adults, and the high incidence of mental health
and behavioral health needs among youth in the juvenile justice system, many
communities expanded the CIT program to address the needs of youth.18 CIT
for Youth (CIT-Y) trains police officers to better understand, identify, and react to
adolescent development and mental health issues, and helps connect those
youth to effective and appropriate services and supports in their community.19
The CIT-Y model empowers police with the training and knowledge to identify
and react safely and effectively to youth in crisis. It also connects them with community resources so that they can decide on appropriate referrals when they encounter youth struggling with family or behavioral health issues. While the goals
are to intervene early in emerging mental health issues and behavioral crises and
to prevent youth from becoming involved in the juvenile justice system, research

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IT TAKES A VILLAGE: DIVERSION RESOURCES FOR POLICE AND FAMILIES

suggests that CIT is associated with improved attitudes and awareness of mental illness among officers, as well as increased confidence in identifying persons
with mental illness. Studies have also found that CIT lowers the likelihood that a
police officer uses force or arrests a person with mental illness.20 In the best case
scenario, effective implementation of CIT-Y connects youth and their families
with the behavioral health services they need, improves mental health partners’
awareness of local youth experiencing difficult situations, and ultimately prevents further involvement with the justice system.21
Some communities are going beyond this model, to not only train and connect
police officers with community resources, but to also incorporate crisis response
programs into the initial response.22 Recently, the National Center for Mental
Health and Juvenile Justice developed an even more comprehensive version of
CIT-Y geared toward school resource officers called Adolescent Mental Health
Training for School Resource Officers (AMHT-SRO). It is intended to help school
resource officers develop the critical skills and capacity to appropriately respond
to the typical behavioral issues of adolescents with mental health problems.23
CIT-Y IN CONNECTICUT
The CIT-Y program in Connecticut was implemented in 2011 at the request of the
Court Support Services Division of the Judicial Branch, which runs the juvenile
probation department with the support of the MacArthur Foundation’s Models
for Change Initiative. Probation officers saw many youth ending up under probation supervision because of mental health issues or problems in the home.
Stakeholders—schools, police, families, child services, and the mental health
department—were invited to participate in the development of the program and
provide feedback. The program was presented not just as training for police, but
as a real shift in the state’s approach to youth. After piloting the program, stakeholders decided that the training could be supplemented to provide immediate
support for police officers encountering kids in crisis. They re-worked an existing
crisis response program in the state’s mental health department—Emergency
Mobile Psychiatric Services (EMPS)—to provide law enforcement, families, and
others with quick assessment and response by trained mental health professionals.
EMPS is a mobile intervention unit for children and adolescents experiencing
a behavioral or mental health crisis, which can be accessed by anyone using a
2-1-1 number. Statewide, the EMPS program received nearly 17,000 calls in 2015,
12,472 (73 percent) of which resulted in EMPS episodes of care. Most children
were referred by parents or family members (44.8 percent) and schools (35.8 percent). Only 1.4 percent of youth were arrested during an EMPS episode.24

Involve all stakeholders from the beginning. It is critical that all stakeholders are involved, both
in developing diversion programs and in regularly evaluating progress and addressing challenges. Soliciting feedback and collectively evaluating outcomes encourages ownership in the program, builds relationships, and improves capacity throughout the community in responding to
crises in more collaborative and effective ways.

VERA INSTITUTE OF JUSTICE

9

CIT-Y IN MICHIGAN
After CIT trainings spread to police departments across Michigan, the governor
recognized that youth were being overlooked and issued an executive order
to expand efforts to address juvenile diversion. Stakeholders decided that the
CIT-Y model had significant potential to fill a need across the state, after finding few youth services or programs available for early diversion. Following the
recommendations of the model, in 2015, state leaders brought together police
officers, mental health clinicians, community-based organizations, and others to
participate in the CIT-Y “Train the Trainer” development sessions. Focused on
early intervention and training police officers to be change agents, these regional sessions emphasized community collaboration. Participants networked
and talked about the services they provide to youth and families and how they
could partner with police officers as a resource when they encountered youth
in crisis. The program is working with Michigan State University to collect data
and evaluate its impact. Although it is fairly new, stakeholders have already seen
an increased number of referrals to mental health providers and a decrease in
the number of automatic juvenile justice referrals from police officers. They are
also measuring police officer and other stakeholder attitudes pre- and postCIT-Y trainings.

EXAMPLES OF DIVERSION RESOURCES FOR YOUTH IN THE U.S.

Juvenile Assessment Resource Centers
Crisis Response Services
Crisis Intervention Teams for Youth (CIT-Y)

2015
Sarpy County, Nebraska:
Heartland Family Service
Crisis Mediation Team

2015
Michigan State
2015
Gresham, Oregon
2011
Connecticut State
2016
Las Vegas, Nevada

2011
Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana:
The Multi Agency Resource
Center (MARC)

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IT TAKES A VILLAGE: DIVERSION RESOURCES FOR POLICE AND FAMILIES

2010
Peoria County, Illinois:
Comprehensive
Community-Based
Youth Services (CCBYS)

Conclusion
The diversion programs described above—juvenile assessment and resource
centers, crisis response programs, and the Crisis Intervention Team for Youth
programs—are improving communities. By implementing a range of immediate
and family-focused alternatives to justice system intervention, and critically examining their own practices on youth arrest and detention, often with the support of key national reform efforts, the cities and towns described above have
radically changed their approach to youth misbehavior.25 These jurisdictions
have recognized the benefits—in safety, cost, and human potential—of keeping
young people out of the justice system. Using data to inform sometimes difficult
conversations among stakeholders, these jurisdictions have created successful
partnerships and working relationships among law enforcement, child welfare
systems, service providers, health departments, schools, families, and many
others to create a true safety net that can keep young people in their communities and connected to their families.
While these efforts are impressive, challenges remain. Many stakeholders acknowledged the tensions that exist in balancing all facets of effective diversion
efforts—providing consistent care and treatment for youth across agencies, collecting outcome data, and being careful to restrict information-sharing. In particular, it is essential that diversion programs effectively safeguard information, so
that what is learned about a young person and their family does not complicate
or exacerbate any future involvement with law enforcement. There are also obvious challenges to reframing the relationships among law enforcement, families,
and communities, as a history of mistrust and competing philosophies has created barriers to collaboration.
Despite these challenges, diversion programs have the potential to reorient the
juvenile justice system away from punishment and toward prevention—a shift
that can have large-scale, sustainable impact as communities develop a shared
vision of responding to youth in trouble through services and support instead
of arrest and jail. This vision recognizes that youth are different from adults and
should be treated differently from adults at all points in our justice system. And
if a family does call the police, they should be able to view police contact as
an opportunity—as one way to proactively respond to challenging adolescent
behavior and family disputes. At its core, this vision acknowledges that everyone—and particularly our youth—deserves a second chance.

“...diversion
programs have
the potential to
reorient the juvenile
justice system away
from punishment
and toward
prevention—a
shift that can
have large-scale,
sustainable impact
as communities
develop a shared
vision of responding
to youth in trouble
through services and
support instead of
arrest and jail.”

VERA INSTITUTE OF JUSTICE

11

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
For additional information on juvenile diversion efforts:
> Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Juvenile Detention
Alternatives Initiative
www.aecf.org/work/juvenile-justice/jdai/
> The MacArthur Foundation’s Models for Change
http://www.modelsforchange.net/index.html
> The National League of Cities
www.nlc.org/find-city-solutions/institute-for-youth-education-and-families/youth-and-young-adult-connections/
juvenile-justice-reform
> National Center for Mental Health and Juvenile Justice
http://www.ncmhjj.com/
> Vera Institute of Justice’s Status Offense Reform Center
http://www.statusoffensereform.org/
> Vera Institute of Justice’s Center on Youth and Justice
http://www.vera.org/centers/youth-justice

ENDNOTES

12

1	

Patricia Arthur and Regina Waugh, “Status Offenses and the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention
Act: The Exception that Swallowed the Rule,” Seattle Journal for Social Justice, no. 7 (2009): 555-576.

2	

“Keeping Kids Out of Court: A Primer on Status Offenses” (New York: Status Offense Reform Center, Vera
Institute of Justice, 2015).

3	

Justice Policy Institute, “The Costs of Confinement: Why Good Juvenile Justice Policies Make Good Fiscal
Sense” (Washington DC: Justice Policy Institute, 2009), https://perma.cc/64UP-QNDF.

4	

Models for Change Juvenile Diversion Workgroup, “Juvenile Diversion Guidebook,” https://perma.cc/8H2DM5GU.

5	

In juvenile court, youth are not “convicted” of an offense. The legal terms vary across jurisdictions, but in
this report, “convicted” refers to the situation where a juvenile is found responsible for a charged offense
by a juvenile court. See Akiva Liberman and David Kirk, Labeling Effects of First Juvenile Arrests: Secondary
Deviance and Secondary Sanctioning (Washington, DC: Justice Policy Center, Urban Institute, 2014).

6	

National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS), https://perma.cc/JY83-QY9K.

7	

Laura Kann, Steve Kinchen, and Shari L. Shanklin, et al., “Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance—United States,
2013,” Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, Center for Disease Control and Prevention 63, no. 4 (2014):
44, https://perma.cc/MF3U-VYWJ.

8	

Kimberly Kempf-Leonard, “Minority Youths and Juvenile Justice: Disproportionate Minority Contact After
Nearly 20 Years of Reform Efforts,” Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice 5, no. 1(2007): 71-87, https://perma.
cc/BT75-FZQR.

9	

Sarah Hockenberry and Charles Puzzanchera, Juvenile Court Statistics 2013 (Pittsburgh, PA: National Center
for Juvenile Justice, 2015), https://perma.cc/9QVW-XWTZ.

IT TAKES A VILLAGE: DIVERSION RESOURCES FOR POLICE AND FAMILIES

10	 Gene Siegal and Gregg Halemba, Promising Practices in the Diversion of
Juvenile Domestic Violence Cases (Pittsburgh, PA: National Center for Juvenile
Justice, 2012).
11	 David Hirschel et al., “Domestic Violence and Mandatory Arrest Laws: To What
Extent Do They Influence Police Decisions?” Journal of Criminal Law and
Criminology 98, no. 1 (2007): 255-298. https://perma.cc/QEH8-K25K; Jennifer
Gaffney, “Amending the Violence Against Women Act: Creating a Rebuttable
Presumption of Gender Animus in Rape Cases,” Journal of Law and Policy 6,
no. 1 (1997): 247-289, https://perma.cc/2TV9-NT24.
12	 David Cloud and Chelsea Davis, “First Do No Harm: Advancing public health in
policing practices” (New York: Vera Institute of Justice, 2015).
13	 Casey, B.J., Rebecca M. Jones, and Todd A. Hare, “The Adolescent Brain,”
Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1124 (2008): 111–126; Laurence
Steinberg, “Adolescent Development and Juvenile Justice,” Annual Review of
Clinical Psychology 5 (April 2009): 47–73; Elizabeth S. Scott and Laurence Steinberg, “Adolescent Development and the Regulation of Youth Crime,” Future
of Children, no. 2 (2008): 15–33; and Beatriz Luna, “Developmental Changes
in Cognitive Control Through Adolescence,” Advances in Child Development
Behavior 37 (2009): 233–78.
14	 Richard J. Bonnie et al., Reforming Juvenile Justice: A Developmental Approach
(Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2013).
15	 Status offenses are activities illegal solely because of an individual’s status as a
minor and include truancy, curfew violations, running away, and incorrigibility.
See Status Offense Reform Center, Vera Institute of Justice, “The Issue,” https://
perma.cc/GC3H-AJUF.
16	 Laura Furr, National League of Cities, “Improving Public Safety and Youth
Outcomes through Juvenile Assessment and Service Centers,” News Search,
September 2, 2014, https://perma.cc/578W-VXSX.

18	 Greg Stewart and Liesabeth Gerritsen, Crisis Intervention Training: The Effects
of Mandatory Training on Use of Force, Arrests and Holds for Mental Health
(Portland, Oregon: Portland Police Bureau, 2012), https://perma.cc/G3YP7MQ5.
19	 See “CIT for Youth,” National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), https://perma.
cc/UTH5-NBTR.
20	 A. Watson and A. Fulambarker, 2012.
21	 “CIT for Youth,” NAMI.
22	 Kathleen Skowyra and Joseph Cocozza, Blueprint for Change: A Comprehensive Model For The Identification And Treatment Of Youth With Mental Health
Needs In Contact With The Juvenile Justice System (Delmar, NY: National
Center for Mental Health and Juvenile Justice, 2007), https://perma.cc/9P4HMHZM.
23	 See Mental Health and Juvenile Justice Collaborative for Change (Collaborative
for Change), National Center for Mental Health and Juvenile Justice at Policy
Research Associates, “Adolescent Mental Health Training for School Resource
Officers (AMHT-SRO),” https://perma.cc/LE46-SLB9.
24	 EMPS Crisis Intervention Services Performance Improvement Center, Annual
Report Fiscal Year 2015, https://perma.cc/8C2X-WAK3.
25	 Using a model rooted in eight core strategies, the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s
Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative proved effective in helping participating jurisdictions safely reduce their detention populations. The MacArthur
Foundation’s Models for Change supports research, policies, and practices that
appropriately respond to the troubled but not delinquent behavior of status
offenders; the National League of Cities supports and informs city leaders
and stakeholders in improving public safety and reforming the juvenile justice
system to encourage the use of evidence-based practices and ensure the fair
treatment of all youth.

17	 Amy Watson and Anjail Fulambarker, “The Crisis Intervention Team Model of
Police Response to Mental Health Crises: A Primer for Mental Health Practitioners” Best Practices in Mental Health 8, no. 2 (2012): 71.

For More Information
© 2016 Vera Institute of Justice. All rights reserved. The Vera Institute of Justice combines expertise in research,
demonstration projects, and technical assistance to help leaders in government and civil society improve the
systems people rely on for justice and safety. This issue brief is made possible by the generous support of the
Prospect Hill Foundation and the program stakeholders who shared their experiences, insight, and time with Vera
staff. For more information about this report, please visit www.vera.org/it-takes-a-village-report or contact Karen
Tamis, senior program associate, Center on Youth Justice, at ktamis@vera.org.
Layout and infographic design by Paragini Amin.
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