The Supreme Court’s latest toolkit standardizes a definition for juvenile diversion and promotes strategies to reform troubled youth outside of the court system.

The Supreme Court’s latest toolkit standardizes a definition for juvenile diversion and promotes strategies to reform troubled youth outside of the court system.

As awareness grows about the detrimental impact of unnecessary juvenile incarceration, the Ohio Supreme Court has created a resource to help local courts steer youths away from courtrooms.

The Supreme Court published a Juvenile Diversion Toolkit highlighting the negative consequences a brief stay in detention can have on a youth’s development, and how the use of counseling and community resources instead of formal court processing increases the likelihood for positive outcomes.

The Subcommittee on Juvenile Justice of the Supreme Court Advisory Committee on Children & Families developed an outline explaining different opportunities of intervention strategies. It describes how courts can create menus of services customized to individual needs of the youth, instead of ordering a generic plan.

The subcommittee’s first task was to establish a road map offering a common statewide definition for diversion, since the use and timing of the term has varied applications across the state. These range from before an initial court appearance to after a disposition as a form of probation.

The purpose behind this standardization establishes a uniformity and consistency that courts can follow procedurally, resulting in more common practices and similar sources, making it easier to track results.

“The establishment and acceptance of a common statewide definition of diversion promotes equality of opportunities for youth across Ohio’s 88 jurisdictions and provides for the possibility of future collection and analysis of data to further educate and improve outcomes,” said subcommittee chair and Franklin County Juvenile Court Judge Elizabeth Gill.

Positive effects of diversion interventions for youth include decreased probabilities of recidivism, increased likelihood of educational and employment success, and constructive community connections.

For courts, fewer judicial hearings results in cost savings for smaller dockets, and allows court staff more time to rehabilitate high-risk youth and chronic offenders.

The toolkit also details the need for courts to develop community-wide support for diversion programming, including law enforcement, schools, and counselors. More collaboration will lead to more intervention with the goal of identifying and addressing issues before they become more problematic to a juvenile and others.

“Each community can create programming that meets the needs of their youth,” said Lucas County Juvenile Judge Denise Cubbon, who also served on the subcommittee. “This toolkit is another example of providing meaningful interventions for youth based upon adolescent development, research and evidence-based practices.”

Courts may request a hard copy of the toolkit by contacting the Children & Families Section at 614.387.9385 or by email.