Definition

The term "jail diversion" refers to programs that divert individuals with serious mental illness (and often co-occurring substance use disorders) away from jail and provide linkages to community-based treatment and support services. The individual thus avoids arrest or spends a significantly reduced time period in jail and/or lockups on the current charge or on violations of probation resulting from previous charges.

Key jail diversion program activities include (Steadman, et al, 1995; Steadman, et al, 2001):

1. Defining a target group for diversion,
2. Identifying individuals as early as possible in their processing by the justice system,
3. Negotiating community-based treatment alternatives to incarceration, and
4. Implementing linkages to comprehensive systems of care and appropriate community supervision consistent with the disposition of the criminal justice contact.

View Slide: From Jail to Community

While all diversion programs engage in some form of identification and linkage, there is no definitive model for organizing a jail diversion program. Different jail diversion strategies are needed because local criminal justice systems vary so much in size, structural characteristics, levels of perceived need, resources available within the communities’ mental health and substance abuse services network, and local politics and economics (Morris and Steadman, 1994).