The Juvenile Diversion Initiative: San Diego County District Attorney’s Office (San Diego County, California)

“The DA Juvenile Diversion Initiative is a leap forward in dismantling the school-to-prison pipeline and providing youth across our county a bridge to leading a healthy life, away from the criminal justice system. If we can redirect juveniles from the very start, it spares them the negative effects of having a criminal record and gives them a better chance at success in the future. Providing them with culturally competent and restorative resources that address the root causes of the criminal behavior in the communities in which they live support the best outcome for our youth.”

—District Attorney Summer Stephan

The Juvenile Diversion Initiative (JDI) in the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office is a pre-file diversion program for youth under 18 that aims to intervene early and limit the number of youth entering the juvenile justice system by providing individualized services based on each youth’s needs.

This case study, part of the Mapping Prosecutor-Led Diversion Project, focuses on the JDI’s broad eligibility criteria and its incorporation of education advocates, highlighting takeaways for other prosecutors and stakeholders looking to launch similar programs. The information included is based on the office’s submitted response to the Mapping Prosecutor-Led Diversion Project survey and interviews with program leadership, staff, and partners. This case study is intended as an overview of this diversion strategy and is not an assessment or evaluation.

The Juvenile Diversion Initiative

During the COVID-19 pandemic, San Diego County brought in its first class of JDI participants. The initiative was piloted in the city of San Diego in the summer of 2021 and expanded countywide later that year, but it began developing years earlier. As of March 2022, the District Attorney’s Office has referred 38 percent of screened cases to the JDI instead of filing those cases. Though the initiative is still in its infancy and hasn’t released reports on its efficacy, staff from the District Attorney’s Office have already seen life-changing success stories and plan to track data on the program’s strengths and areas for improvement.

A few of the leaders and staff we interviewed mentioned that many members of the San Diego community have always had a desire to bring youth out of the criminal legal system and back into their community. Pre-file diversion paired with community-led programming and services is one transformative way to do this. The District Attorney’s Office sought to facilitate the connection to community-led services through the JDI. This grew partially from earlier engagement with the Georgetown Center for Juvenile Justice Reform, during which the two collaborated to create a set of core beliefs to guide the program, including the prioritization of prevention and early intervention programs and services for youth to help redirect antisocial behavior and support the healthy development of youth. The JDI follows these core beliefs and offers a pre-file diversion alternative for low-risk youth, thus completely diverting them from the legal system altogether.

To connect youth with services in the community, the District Attorney’s Office understood that it needed to find a community organization with ties to local service providers. San Diego County put out a request for proposals to identify a community-led organization that could assess young people’s needs and provide community-led programming and services based on those needs. The National Conflict Resolution Center (NCRC) won the request for proposals and is now the community-led organization that does the bulk of the assessment and service connection once the District Attorney’s Office identifies eligible youth.

All misdemeanor and felony cases submitted to the District Attorney’s Office by law enforcement will first be screened to determine whether the office has enough proof to prosecute a case or must reject the case. If it is a provable case, prosecutors will screen it for eligibility for the JDI. However, some cases are generally excluded, including sexual assaults, homicides, drug trafficking across international borders, and other felony offenses that pose a serious public safety risk as determined by the JDI deputy district attorney.

After a youth is deemed eligible for the JDI, the District Attorney’s Office will collect their contact information and some details about the offense and share this with the NCRC, which manages the rest of the process. The NCRC will then contact eligible young people, explain the program, and ask whether they agree to participate. If they agree, the NCRC will administer a San Diego County–validated risk-needs assessment tool to capture what type of engagement will be most beneficial for the youth, who will receive an individualized plan with community resources to connect with. Additionally, the youth will complete a restorative session with community members with the assistance of the NCRC to reflect on the harm created, allow the person who has been victimized to share their thoughts, and reach an agreement to address the harm.

The NCRC will then inform the District Attorney’s Office whether the youth successfully completed the requirements of their individualized plan, but it will not disclose anything related to their engagement in services or the restorative session to protect the youth’s confidentiality and retain some separation between the NCRC’s work and prosecution. If the youth is successful, the NCRC informs the District Attorney’s Office and the case is never filed. Theoretically, the youth then has connections to community providers, and a soft handoff back into the community has occurred. If the youth is unsuccessful, the case is filed. Nothing that happens during the diversion process will be used against the youth in filing. The maximum amount of time a youth can be in the program is six months, but they often complete it sooner.

The JDI is unique in that it is funded completely by the District Attorney’s Office, which redistributed its budget to include a contract with the NCRC. Under that contract, the NCRC subcontracted with smaller, culturally competent grassroots organizations in the community that can provide a range of services to youth. Each community organization that the NCRC subcontracts with is routinely assessed to ensure it is the right provider to offer the service. If an organization is not providing services that meet participants’ needs, the NCRC can reevaluate and find a different provider that better suits participants.

Being Bold with Eligibility

The District Attorney’s Office always believed it should screen each case individually for eligibility in the JDI and not make exclusions based on offense type. This meant that the JDI would theoretically divert cases pre-file that involve a felony, which no other diversion program in San Diego County has the legal authority to do. One interview participant said the office has accepted cases that included felony auto theft, which previously would not have had any alternative to prosecution. Staff said the biggest hurdle in designing the program was the inclusion of felonies in pre-file diversion, including some they had never seen in other diversion programs across the country. The District Attorney’s Office noted that when looking for diversion programs to emulate, it did not encounter many other diversion models nationwide with the same breadth of eligibility.

To bring other agencies on board, the District Attorney’s Office relied on its already established trust with probation and police officers, public defense, and the courts, and had multiple dialogues with partners to explain the purpose behind a nontraditional program. The office prepared a strong research angle to back its proposal and committed to providing results publicly.

Education Advocate

The inclusion of an education advocate is a unique aspect of the JDI. An education advocate helps ensure a youth’s needs are being addressed. Specifically, they help parents navigate the education system to ensure their children are getting the tools required to assist with their learning. Several interviewees noted that youth who are involved in the legal system often struggle with school, and education is often the key to opening opportunities and facilitating their success. Staff in the District Attorney’s Office included educational advocates in the JDI after a review of cases revealed the need for this support. They chose this model based on research behind the causes of truancy and an understanding of how difficult it can be for families to navigate the school system.

When a youth agrees to participate in the JDI, the District Attorney’s Office obtains the participant’s school records and shares it with NCRC. If the NCRC’s risk-needs assessment identifies this as a need, it will connect the youth to an education advocate who will collaborate with the youth and their caregivers to create a plan to increase engagement in school. The education advocate will assist with obtaining needed accommodations for youth have disabilities. They work with the youth and their family to make sure youth are given the support and services they need to succeed in school.

The following lessons learned were informed by observations from District Attorney’s Office leadership and staff and from their partners:

• Be patient with developing a program. Prosecutors’ offices may want to add several components to diversion programs, but, as San Diego officials discovered, taking it slow is critical. When building a program, consider what is available in the community and what is attainable for youth. This means programs may miss some desired components at first, but they can always adapt later. To start on the right foot, prosecutors in San Diego needed to first delineate goals for the program and create concrete, specific outcomes.
• Have an expert team. It’s important to reach out to community groups and skilled service providers to collaborate. If a prosecutor’s office offered diversion with service provision on its own, communities might be skeptical. What has been most helpful for the JDI has been partnering with the NCRC, which has been connected to the community for years.
• Invest time in educating partners and building a coalition. San Diego engaged the court, police, and public defenders when creating the program. Though the district attorney could do this without these stakeholders, engaging them enabled buy-in for the program and its intent to be built.
• Set up the program to facilitate a soft handoff to the community. San Diego’s goals were to intervene with youth involved in the criminal legal system early and to set them up for success. To do so and to stop the cycle of system involvement, the JDI created a soft handoff from its office to the NCRC, which has connections to sustainable services in the community that youth can continue using past their JDI participation.
• Be flexible with programmatic components and services offered. The JDI will evolve, and San Diego will let the data drive the services the initiative will offer. For example, the District Attorney’s Office is considering adding a health advocate to its services who will help youth navigate health and human services, Medi-Cal, and other complex public service agencies.
• Ensure services are culturally responsive and effective. Just providing community services isn’t enough. District Attorney’s Office staff stated that it’s critical that services are appropriate for each youth and their background. Additionally, a youth’s performance is already being assessed, and to ensure a good performance, high-quality service providers are necessary. One interview participant stated that performance-based contracts are a way to check the quality of providers.