The diversion concept includes specific requirements for convicts in the program to participate in educational or vocational programs likely to provide lasting results beyond the period of probation. Probation generally requires only that probationers maintain some type of gainful employment or some kind of academic or vocational involvement.
As a result, the less intensive supervision and criteria in the probation program are much less likely to result in long-lasting behavioral changes. In effect, probation is more likely to become little more than a mandatory period of lawful behavior instead of a (usually shorter) period of incarceration; much like many instances of incarceration followed by release, probation followed by release is associated with resumption of criminal activities once the probation is concluded (Schmalleger, 2008).
The principal difference between probation and diversion is that probation requires little more than passive cooperation whereas...
Those criteria are more strict, subject to closer supervision, and formulated much more directly to address specific issues in the lives of individual program participants than the very general criteria and rules of probation programs. The intended outcomes of diversion program are to reduce criminal inclination over the lifetime of the individual rather than just to reduce criminal involvement during a short time period of supervision.
Effectiveness is also a function of recidivism in comparison to incarcerated criminals and those sentenced to probation instead of to diversion programs.
References
Schmalleger, F. (2008). Criminal Justice Today: An Introductory Text for the 21st
Century. Hoboken, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Zalman, M. (2008). Criminal Procedure: Constitution and Society. New Jersey: Prentice
Hall.
