Diversion

NCS diversion with clients
We seek to provide meaningful and effective responses at various stages of the criminal legal process in order to achieve better outcomes for participants.

These responses include diverting people from traditional sentencing—and, in some cases, formal case processing—into community-based resources. The goal is to reduce the collateral consequences of legal involvement for individuals, as well as reduce crime and incarceration. We offer meaningful responses to crime that are proportionate, emphasize accountability, and connect participants with social services to reduce the probability of future harm.

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 charges 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.

  • Closing Rikers Island

     In 2017, New York City committed to a long-term plan for closing the jails on 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

  • Publication

    Circles for Safe Streets: Driver Accountability Through Restorative Justice

    Circles for Safe Streets, a pilot project of the Center for Court Innovation in partnership with Families for Safe Streets, provides a restorative justice response to vehicular crimes resulting in serious injury or death. The program builds on the Center’s work in both Driver Accountability and Restorative Justice, offering an avenue to support both victims and drivers.

    Diversion, Restorative Justice
See All Publications and Digital Media →

News

  • People With Serious Mental Illness Need Housing, Not Jail

    March 12, 2024
    Vital City

    Who winds up on Rikers Island and why? What will it take to close the troubled jail complex? Those are some critical questions raised in Vital City’s special issue on New York City’s jails. In their contribution to the issue, our policy experts Daniel Ades and Virginia Barber Rioja make the case for investing in supportive housing, not jail, for people with serious mental illness—a desperately needed alternative that is cheaper, more humane, and safer for us all.

  • Connecticut prosecutors strive for efficiency, equity through 'Moving Justice Forward' initiative

    July 21, 2023
    Connecticut Public Radio

    Connecticut Public Radio gives a brief outline of the Moving Justice Forward project, which we helped develop in partnership with Connecticut's Division of Criminal Justice. Alternatives to incarceration, robust training for prosecutors, and concerns about wrongful convictions were among the topics discussed at a July press conference on the initiative—highlighting the urgency of efforts to create a fairer, more effective legal system for all.

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