Advancing Racial Equity in Youth Diversion: An Evaluation Framework Informed By Los Angeles County.

By Liz Kroboth, Sukhdip Purewal Boparai and Jonathan Heller

In 2017, Los Angeles County established an Office of Youth Diversion and Development to advance a collaboratively designed pre-booking diversion initiative that prevents youth from getting formally arrested or referred to probation during encounters with law enforcement. Human Impact Partners and the Los Angeles (LA) County Office of Youth Diversion and Development (YDD) partnered to develop this evaluation framework to assess and prevent racial inequities in this program. LA County’s pre-booking diversion program is part of a broader effort to reduce mass incarceration of Black and Brown youth . In LA County and across the US, Black and Brown youth are arrested and detained by law enforcement at disproportionately greater rates compared to White youth. Organizing by local youth advocates and policy changes at the local, state, and national level have created opportunities for community-based pre-booking diversion in LA County to reduce the excessive and unfair criminalization and incarceration of Black and Brown youth and equitably improve outcomes for youth.

Oakland, CA: Human Impact Partners, 2019. 54p.