Diversion Programs
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Partners in Crisis is supported in part by grants from the JEHT and Florida Bar Foundations 
Post-Booking Diversion
Post-booking diversion is the most prevalent type of diversion program in the United States. These programs identify and divert individuals with mental illness after they have been arrested. The TAPA Center publication, Non-Specialty First Appearance Court Models for Diverting Persons with Mental Illness: Alternatives to Mental Health Courts, discusses diversion models that occur very early in the criminal justice process. In some cases, individuals are diverted later in the process, including at disposition or sentencing. Points at which individuals may be diverted, post-booking, include:
- At or immediately after booking into jail, before the formal filing of charges
- Release from pretrial detention, with the condition of participation in treatment
- Prior to disposition, for example, upon the prosecutor's offer of deferred prosecution
- At disposition or sentencing; this may include deferred sentencing or release on probation with conditions which include participation in treatment
- When at risk of, or following, a violation of probation related to a prior conviction
Specialty courts, such as mental health courts, are an increasingly visible form of post-booking diversion program, in which all cases involving people with mental illness are handled through a special docket. The Department of Justice's Mental Health Courts Program provides a great deal of information on the design, implementation and operation of mental health courts. Another source of information is the mental health courts survey of the Council on State Governments' Criminal Justice and Mental Health Consensus Project.
Diversion program staff work with prosecutors, public defenders, community-based mental health and substance abuse providers and the courts to develop and implement a plan for diversion and linkage to an appropriate array of community-based services. Nearly all post-booking diversion programs include some type of monitoring of compliance with treatment, though the level of supervision and the active involvement of the court vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Charges are often reduced or dropped upon the individual's successful program completion. In the alternative, the individual diverted may receive less time or no time in jail at sentencing as a result of participating in the jail diversion program.
It is important to distinguish jail diversion from discharge or transition planning. Discharge planning activities should be part of usual criminal justice processing and occur only when the detainee would ordinarily leave the jail. By contrast, jail diversion is a special, targeted program to short circuit usual criminal court processing to the benefit of the detainee, the correctional staff and the community.
For more information about Post-booking Diversion visit these websites:
