Diversion and Net Widening

Among the rationales used in promoting juvenile diversion is cost savings. This rationale is based on the assumption that diversion handling is less expensive than formal justice processing and that diversion reduces the number of cases handled by the formal system. To date, the few available results concerning diversion's cost savings are fragmented and inconclusive. Although diversion handling has been found to be less costly, it has also been shown that diversion increases the overall number of youth subject to court supervision and control. Diversion's capacity to "widen the net " has been ignored in previous cost studies. This article assesses the feasible cost savings associated with statewide imple mentation of diversionary arbitration programs in Florida and includes consideration of the programs' capacities to wide the client net.