Page 69 - JUSTICE Tackling Racial Injustice - Children and the Youth Justice System

not complete the relevant course for reasons related to their lifestyle.
Regardless of causes, the consequences are clear. The differential access to
diversion means White children are more likely to be the beneficiaries of
interventions that are more likely to stop repeat offending. The lamentable
waste in opportunity is evidenced by the fact that most children held on remand
do not receive a custodial sentence.

3.30 We consider the use of diversion to be essential in mitigating disparate
outcomes for BAME children. 198 For instance, participants in the DIVERT
programme in Brixton have a reoffending rate of 7%, 199 and the scheme at
Young Hackney also has excellent initial results 200 – although it is awaiting the
results of a formal evaluation. In the United States, the Philadelphia Police
School Diversion has been running since 2014, and has been replicated
throughout the country. It has resulted in a 54% reduction in arrests at school
and 75% reduction in the number of expulsions from school. This shows that
diversion not only reduces reoffending but can improve many different
outcomes for children. 201

3.31 Despite these excellent results, access to diversion remains a post code lottery.
This is because there is no national framework; each area has a different way
of doing it, if indeed it does it all. This can mean that some areas require an
202
admission of guilt to be considered for diversion, while others do not.
Moreover, some areas do not have programmes at all, or where they exist they
are either ineffective or culturally inappropriate. This differing practice means

198 Diversion is a process where those who are arrested are not dealt with through traditional criminal
justice mechanisms. Rather, they are ‘diverted’ to less formal programmes that seek to address the root
causes of the behaviour that led to arrest. In this way, the individual should be less likely to reoffend.
Although relatively recent developments, initial indicators are that diversion schemes are highly
effective at turning people away from crime.
199 DIVERT, ‘DIVERT briefing note’, 2018.
200 Centre for Justice Innovation, ‘Understanding Youth Diversion in London Evidence and practice
briefing’ June 2020.
201 Philadelphia Police School Diversion Programme, Keeping kids in school and out of court, 2018.
202 See, for example, the ‘CPS Director’s Guidance on Charging (6th Edition)’ at para 8.9: “A caution
or conditional caution will require that the person admits guilt. This is in addition to the requirement
that the evidential stage of the Code test is met. More informal resolutions require that responsibility
is acknowledged.”.

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