Case Study: The Adolescent Diversion Program

E. Adolescent Diversion Program The Adolescent Diversion Program (ADP) is an advocacy oriented diversion program in Michigan created in 1976 from a study done by Michigan State University Professor, William Davidson. Davidson’s (1987) study included only youth that had been arrested and referred by the juvenile courts. The goal of Davidson’s (1987) study was to reduce recidivism among juveniles with serious criminal offenses as well as status offenses (Davidson et al, 1987). The study was conducted with 213 juveniles (228 were referred to the program, however, 8 refused and 7 dropped out) over the course of 5 years, in order to study the effectiveness of various components of the Adolescent Diversion Program (Davidson et al, 1987). According to Davidson’s (1987) study, the sample was 83% male with 26% being minorities. Davidson (1987) also found the participants were between 12-17 years old with the

Researchers found 2-3 years after completing the program, youth had a 30.2% rate of recidivism (Wylie et al, n.d.). Those who did not successfully complete the program had at 51.1% to 61.1% rate of recidivism over the course of 2-3 years (Wylie et al, n.d.). This study also looked at whether the subsequent offenses were more or less severe (Wylie et al, n.d.). Wylie and Hobbs (n.d.) found 75.2% of offenses were of the same severity as the offense for which the youth was in the diversion program. Additionally, 7.6% decreased in severity and 17.2% increased in severity (Wylie et al, n.d.). Further, the research showed youth who were unsuccessful in the diversion program were less likely to commit an offense more severe than the original offense than juveniles who were never enrolled in a diversion program (Wylie et al,