Michigan Public Policy Survey — Law Enforcement Views on Diversion
62%
of Police Chiefs support diversion programs for defendants with mental health and substance abuse issues
78%
of Sheriffs and Prosecutors support these programs
Source: The Michigan Public Policy Survey
What Diversion Programs Actually Do
Diversion programs offer an alternative path to the traditional criminal justice system. They are not a get-out-of-jail-free card. They are a structured intervention designed to address what actually drove system involvement in the first place.
Housing
Some programs assist participants in securing stable housing — addressing one of the most direct contributors to repeated system involvement.
Treatment
Participants are connected with substance use disorder treatment and mental health services rather than prosecution and incarceration.
Resources
Case managers help participants access wraparound services — employment, benefits, education — that support long-term stability rather than short-term compliance.
This Is Not a New Idea — LBJ’s Crime Commission, 1967
President Lyndon B. Johnson’s
Crime Commission called for diversion programs over fifty years ago — recognizing that unemployment, poverty, and mental health issues were the underlying drivers of system involvement and that prosecution alone would never solve them. We have known this for decades. The gap between what we know and what we do is a policy choice, not a knowledge problem.
LEAD: A Model That Works
Case Study — Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD), Seattle, Washington
The
LEAD program diverts people engaged in low-level drug offenses, prostitution, and poverty-related crimes away from prosecution and jail. Instead, participants are connected with intensive case managers who provide crisis response, psychosocial assessment, substance use treatment, and housing services.
What the research shows:
- Participants had significantly lower recidivism rates compared to those processed through the traditional system
- The program costs less per participant than prosecution and incarceration
- LEAD has been replicated in jurisdictions across the country, including several in Michigan
Michigan’s Progress — and Its Gaps
Several Michigan counties offer alternative courts. Wayne County operates a diversion section that allows qualifying individuals to resolve their cases without a criminal record. Drug courts, mental health courts, and veterans courts exist in other counties as well.
It’s progress. But access to diversion varies enormously across the state. Counties with fewer resources or less political appetite for reform leave residents without options that exist 30 miles away. That is not a justice system. That is a zip code lottery.
The Question That Demands an Answer
Law enforcement leaders already support this. The research already supports this. The history already supports this.
So why aren’t we using diversion programs more?
There is still significant work to do — and the gap between what we know works and what we actually fund is not a policy mystery. It is a political choice.
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