Measuring Long-Term Outcomes for Youth Diversion

Diversion programs are often celebrated for keeping youth out of detention—but the true question is what happens after the applause fades. Do diverted youth return to school? Do they graduate, find work, and stay out of court years later? The answers depend on whether states are willing to follow the data past the end of a grant cycle.

Key Findings

Arkansas’s Building Futures Diversion Program provides one of the region’s strongest examples of outcome tracking. A three-year follow-up of youth diverted between 2018 and 2021 found that only 22% had any new referral within two years, compared with 42% of comparable youth processed through court. The benefit persisted over time: even at three years, diverted youth were less likely to be re-arrested and more likely to be in school or work. Similarly, Texas’s multisystemic therapy (MST) pilots showed sustained reductions in reoffending through 2025, with long-term cost savings estimated at $5 for every dollar invested.

Missouri’s Division of Youth Services adds another dimension—educational continuity. Because Missouri integrates education tracking with its diversion records, it can report that 76% of diverted youth graduate or earn a GED within three years. In states without integrated data systems, those numbers are largely invisible, leaving policymakers to guess at outcomes.

State Comparisons

The Mid-South states vary widely in how long they follow youth after diversion. Arkansas, Missouri, and Tennessee report at least 12-month outcomes. Texas and Oklahoma collect 6-month recidivism data but rarely link it to school or employment. Louisiana’s Office of Juvenile Justice began a small “Pathways Tracker” in 2024 to see where diverted youth go after case closure—its early data suggest improved school retention when youth receive mentoring alongside diversion.

National research from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention shows that sustained follow-up changes the conversation. When programs measure success at three years, their impact on reoffending shrinks slightly but their effect on education and employment grows sharply. Youth who remain in education for a full year post-diversion are twice as likely to avoid new offenses within three years.

What Works

The best programs define outcomes broadly—beyond recidivism. Arkansas’s Building Futures and Youth Advocate Programs (YAP) both track “community stability” measures: school attendance, mental health improvement, and family contact frequency. These indicators predict success more reliably than arrest data alone. A University of Arkansas audit in 2024 found that youth completing diversion with at least one consistent adult mentor were 30% more likely to be in employment or training two years later.

States like Missouri and Tennessee are now using integrated dashboards that merge education, probation, and workforce data. By embedding these metrics, diversion becomes part of a larger youth development strategy rather than a temporary detour from court.

Future Outlook

Over the next few years, expect diversion evaluation to look more like longitudinal research. Arkansas and Texas are preparing to link diversion datasets with their labor and education departments for ten-year tracking, a model inspired by Washington State’s cost–benefit studies. Nationally, 2025 is the year diversion stops being judged by “did they reoffend?” and starts being judged by “did they thrive?”

The next step is comparability: creating shared metrics across states—school persistence, credential attainment, employment stability—so diversion’s full social return can be measured and improved.

Sources

Arkansas Building Futures Diversion Program Evaluation, University of Arkansas, 2024.
Texas TJJD Multisystemic Therapy Outcomes Report, 2025.
Missouri Division of Youth Services Annual Report, 2024.
OJJDP Longitudinal Studies on Youth Diversion Outcomes, 2024.