Diversion is typically a prosecutor-designed program in a court for someone who has not been in trouble before. They have it available – typically – for domestic violence, in drug cases, some theft cases, and some other types of cases where justice permits that the case is handled in a different way – in a pretrial manner – rather than the regular court system.
So, what does diversion consist of? It’s very different for jurisdiction, and it’s actually very different for each court and each prosecutor. Oftentimes, there’s a community service component. There’s also going to be some supervision of the person – maybe some checking in and some visits for the diversion officer, in order to successfully complete the program. And they would have a checklist of things that you need to get done during the diversion. You need to stay out of trouble while you’re in diversion.
But there’s a huge benefit – there’s a huge upside – to diversion because if you complete all of that, diversion will have your case dismissed and normally, your record restricted, to protect your record. So, diversion is something you definitely want to ask an attorney if your case is eligible for diversion.