This week, we begin our examination of contemporary responses to youths’ illegal behaviors. The goal for this week is to assess pre-adjudication responses to youths’ illegal behavior.  Primarily, our focus will be on nonformal responses or diversion.  As a prelude to this discussion, we will consider the “school to prison pipeline” as it provides a good way to understand the need for diversion in juvenile justice.

Objectives
Upon completion of this week’s lesson, you should be able to:

• Define what is meant by the “school to prison pipeline.”
• Explain how the political economy contributes to the school to prison pipeline.
• Explain how trends in education, policing, and juvenile justice contribute to the school to prison pipeline
• Describe juvenile arrest trends and trends in the willingness of police to refer youths to juvenile court.
• Define radical nonintervention or true diversion and assess the role in can play in juvenile justice.
• Explain the rationale for diversion and its value in juvenile justice.
• Describe diversion programs that appear to be effective and programs that are not effective
• Assess arguments that are made in support of diversion.
• Assess the potential problems that should be addressed when developing or operating diversion programs

Tasks

1. View Video Lecture (Part 1 and Part 2 below) on the School to Prison Pipeline. While viewing the videos, use the pause feature to stop the slides when needed so that you can examine the content.
   1. Part 1
   2. Part 2
2. Watch the video: Rethinking Challenging Kids-Where There’s a Skill There’s a Way | J. Stuart Ablon | TEDxBeaconStreet
3. Read the material below, Juvenile Diversion.
4. View Video Lecture 3