Diversion
Definition
Handling a child's case outside formal judicial proceedings, for example through caution, mediation or community-based measures, so that the criminal process itself is avoided wherever appropriate.
Related terms
- Beijing Rules
- The United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Administration of Juvenile Justice, adopted by General Assembly resolution 40/33 on 29 November 1985,...
- Riyadh Guidelines
- The United Nations Guidelines for the Prevention of Juvenile Delinquency, adopted by General Assembly resolution 45/112 on 14 December 1990, setting out...
- Best Interests of the Child
- The principle that a child's welfare and development, not only the offence or the process, should guide decisions affecting the child.
- Convention on the Rights of the Child
- The binding UN treaty adopted in 1989, whose Article 37 and Article 40 state a child's rights when deprived of liberty and...
- Curfew Violation
- Presence in a public place by a minor after a locally fixed evening hour, enforced through municipal or local ordinances rather than...
- Decriminalisation
- The formal removal of conduct from the category of offence, here applied to the movement away from treating status conduct as court...
- Developmental Prevention
- Prevention timed to specific developmental stages, such as infancy, early childhood or the transition to adolescence, on the premise that risk factors...
- Havana Rules
- The United Nations Rules for the Protection of Juveniles Deprived of their Liberty, adopted by General Assembly resolution 45/113 on 14 December...
- Minimum Age of Criminal Responsibility
- The age below which a state treats a child as incapable of criminal intent, fixed differently in each domestic system but subject...
- Non-Custodial Measures
- Sentences or pre-trial measures that do not involve imprisonment, such as probation, community service, suspended sentences, fines and diversion, the subject of...
- Primary Prevention
- Universal measures aimed at an entire population or community, delivered before any risk has been identified in a specific child.
- Risk and Protective Factors
- Measurable individual, family, peer, school and community conditions that longitudinal research links to a raised or lowered likelihood of offending.
Explained in these topics
- Beijing Rules and Riyadh Guidelines (Unit IX)Resolving a matter without formal court proceedings wherever it can be handled that way, one of the minimum-intervention principles the Beijing Rules press for.
- International Standards in Juvenile Justice: the Beijing Rules and the Riyadh Guidelines
- Prevention of Juvenile DelinquencyRedirecting a child, usually a first-time or low-risk offender, away from formal court processing and into a community-based or restorative response.
- Status Offences: Truancy and Vagrancy (Unit IX)Routing a child away from formal court or delinquency processing and toward school-based, family-support or welfare responses instead.