Diversion

NCS diversion with clients
We seek to provide meaningful off-ramps at various stages of the criminal justice process in order to achieve better outcomes for arrestees.

These off-ramps include diverting people from traditional sentencing—and, in some cases, formal case processing—into community-based interventions. The goal is to reduce crime, incarceration, and the collateral consequences of justice-involvement. We offer responses to law-breaking behavior that are proportionate, that emphasize accountability, and that connect participants with social services to reduce the probability of future offending.

Examples of this work include Midtown Community Court, Red Hook Community Justice Center, Newark Community Solutions, Bronx Community Solutions, Brooklyn Justice Initiatives, and Project Reset. In New Rochelle, our Opportunity Youth Part program links emerging adults facing misdemeanor or felony charge to local service providers for workforce development training, academic assistance, and behavioral health services.

Many of these programs have been documented to reduce the use of jail by increasing the availability of meaningful alternatives, including community restitution and social services. Together, our programs divert close to 25,000 people every year from conventional processing and sentencing.

In addition to operating our programs, we have also provided research and strategic support to the Independent Commission on New York City Criminal Justice and Incarceration Reform which laid out a series of reforms to cut the city’s jail population in half in coming years. And we’re engaged in two ambitious national justice-reform initiatives: The MacArthur Foundation’s Safety and Justice Challenge, and The Price of Justice, a program of the Bureau of Justice Assistance. Our research department conducts evaluations of programs taking place across the country, including a recent series of reports on national police- and prosecutor-led initiatives.

Initiatives

  • Brooklyn Mental Health Court

    The Brooklyn Mental Health Court offers community-based treatment in lieu of incarceration to defendants with serious mental health diagnoses.

  • Brooklyn Treatment Court

    The Brooklyn Treatment Court links defendants with substance use disorders to treatment as an alternative to incarceration.

  • Brooklyn Young Adult Court

    The Brooklyn Young Adult Court seeks to provide meaningful alternatives to conventional prosecution for young people, ages 18 to 24, charged with misdemeanors.

  • Project Reset

    Project Reset is a diversion program offering a new response to a low-level arrest that is proportionate, effective, and restorative.

  • Rethinking Rikers Island

    By providing support to the Independent Commission on Criminal Justice and Incarceration Reform, we're aiding in the effort to reduce New York City’s jail population and close Rikers Island.

  • Supervised Release Program

    The Supervised Release Program reduces the number of people held in jail simply because they cannot afford bail.

Publications & Digital Media

  • Publication

    Fact Sheet: The Bronx Community Justice Center

    The Bronx Community Justice Center works to create a safer, more equitable Bronx through community-driven public safety initiatives, youth opportunity, and economic mobility efforts focused in the South Bronx. Our vision is to support the South Bronx community to become a safe and thriving place where local ownership, community-led investment, and youth opportunity can flourish. The Bronx Community Justice Center works toward this vision by focusing on community safety, restorative practices, and youth and economic development.

    Community Justice, Diversion, Placemaking, Reducing Trauma, Reducing Violence, Youth Initiatives
  • Video

    Changemakers in Action: Kristina Singleton

    Kristina Singleton works on diverting people from court into supportive or educational programming. Among the programs she works with at the Midtown Community Court are Project Reset, which offers those charged with a low-level crime the chance to avoid court and a criminal record by completing community-based programming, and a recently launched youth gun-diversion program for young people who have been arrested on gun possession charges.

    Community Justice, Diversion, Problem-Solving Justice, Workforce Development
  • Video

    Treatment Not Jail

    SG’s heroin addiction cost him his family, his health, and his job. He knew he had to stop before it also cost him his life. Bronx Community Solutions made the difference that helped SG change his life around. The opioid crisis is an epidemic, affecting thousands, but you can be a part of the solution.

    Diversion, Problem-Solving Justice
See All Publications and Digital Media →

News

  • L.A. criminal court program diverts mentally ill offenders from prosecution

    May 26, 2023
    Los Angeles Times

    Los Angeles County’s jails house a staggering number of people with mental illnesses, where these conditions go untreated and can even get worse. Under the county’s Rapid Diversion Program, operated in partnership with the Center, more than 1,500 people have been given the chance to receive treatment in their communities instead. So far, 350 people have graduated from the program to see their charges reduced or dropped.

  • How Communities are Creating More Equitable Justice Systems with a Focus on Mental Health

    October 10, 2022
    Microsoft News

    In Los Angeles County, home to the country's largest jail population, the city and local organizations are partnering to create more equity in the legal process by focusing on mental health. The Center is helping to implement the LA-based Rapid Diversion Program, which helps individuals with mental health diagnoses connect with case management, treatment, housing and job services, and cases are dismissed when a participant completes the program. "If we’re able to help one person and change their trajectory, it can have compounding impacts for their families and their communities,” Chidinma Ume, our interim director of policy, says. Brett Taylor, senior advisor of West Coast Initiatives is also quoted.

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