Community justice centers and researcher describe low recidivism, per-case savings and restorative outcomes

Researchers and practitioners told the Judiciary Committee on Feb. 14 that diversion programs substantially reduce recidivism for first-time offenders and cost less per case than traditional court processing, and they described how local restorative conferences work in practice.

Robin Joy, director of research for the Crime Research Group, summarized prior cost-benefit and recidivism studies and said the recidivism result for first-time offenders who completed diversion was "less than half a percent." Joy told the committee that in her 2019 diversion study the recidivism rate for comparable first-time offenders who went through the traditional criminal justice process was higher (she cited a figure closer to 5 or 6 percent in back-and-forth remarks), and she called the diversion recidivism outcome "awesome." Joy also described the study's time logs: diversion case worker time per case in 2019 ranged from about 11 hours for assaults, 6.7 hours for domestic cases, about 5 hours for trespass, roughly 4.5 hours for drug cases, and about 4.3 hours for fraud/theft. Joy said the average cost per…