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41 U. Chi. L. Rev. 224 (1973-1974)
Measuring the Impact of Pretrial Diversion from the Criminal Justice System

handle is hein.journals/uclr41 and id is 234 raw text is: Measuring the Impact of Pretrial Diversion from the Criminal Justice System* Franklin E. Zimringt In 1967 the Vera Institute of Justice established the Manhattan Court Employment Project to divert criminal defendants, after their arraignment on felony or misdemeanor charges, into a program of group therapy and employment counseling. If a defendant succeeds in the program and obtains a job, his pending criminal charges are dis- missed. The goals of this innovative program are eloquently stated in the Vera Institute's ten-year report: The Manhattan Court Employment Project aims to stop the de- velopment of criminal careers by entering the court process after an individual has been arrested but before he has been tried, and giving him the kind of counseling and opportunity for starting on a legitimate career that he needs and otherwise is not able to obtain. The defendant is offered the possibility that the charges against him will be dismissed, provided he is cooperative and re- sponds to counseling and job placement within a 90-day period granted by the court. It is, in other words, an attempt to convert his-arrest from a los- ing to a winning experience-to build a bridge for the accused between the fractured world of the street and the .orderly world of lawfulness and responsibility. The defendant wins because he gets a job he likes and the charges against him are dismissed... and society wins also because an individual who may be develop- The data on New York City's Court Employment Project reported in these pages have been excerpted from a report I submitted to the N.Y.C. Human Resources Administration in November 1973. That research was supported by the Human Resources Administration and the Court Employment Project. Paul Herzick, Director of Research of the Court Em- ployment Project, supervised the collection of the data used in this paper, and Ennis Olgiati, Director of the Court Employment Project, provided administrative and moral support to the enterprise. The views expressed in this paper are mine and are not neces- sarily shared by the Human Resources Administration or the Court Employment Project, although I hope they are. My critical focus on a Vera Institute of Justice project continues a long academic tradition of kicking only one's friends. Since its inception the Institute has been one of the most powerful change agents in the criminal justice system, and, at present, the Institute research staff is one of the finest in the United States. t Professor of Law and Co-Director of the Center for Studies in Criminal Justice, University of Chicago; student of Hans Zeisel.

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