Juvenile Diversion

Abstract

The desirability of combining tests of theory with evaluations of treatment modalities is argued in the context of an investigation of the effectiveness of a juvenile diversion program. More than 2000 Memphis-area youth participated in a true experimental design (with randomization) assigning youth to "penetrate" the traditional system, "services," or a control group "without services." Recidivism analyses dependent on court record data consistently failed to demonstrate the relative superiority of any of the three treatment approaches on outcome measures of dichotomous recidivism status, total number of recidivating offenses, and days of successfully avoiding rearrest.