Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD)
LEAD is a unique pre-arrest program that gives police officers an effective option when responding to people suffering from chronic issues such as substance use, mental health challenges or poverty. Instead of arrest, officers can choose to divert the person to a case management support program. If the person agrees (along with any aggrieved party present), one call to the LEAD number results in a “warm hand-off” from the officer to a case manager, often right at the sight of the arrest. The manager will then connect the person to an appropriate social service program(s). After 30 days participation, the divertee’s infraction is expunged from legal records. Unlike the typical time-limited diversion programs, LEAD services last as long as needed to address and stabilize the divertee’s circumstances, generally from six months to two or more years.
Services offered to the divertee may include housing, education, employment, mental health counseling, and/or substance-use treatment. An organized and efficient infrastructure is used to coordinate communication between the case manager, service providers, members of the criminal justice community, and other stakeholders. Available data from LEAD programs show that recidivism declines, police are supportive, and quality of life improves for participants. This fair, robust, win-win intervention benefits the entire community.
Goals & Principles of LEAD:
Reorient government’s response to safety, disorder, and health-related problems.
Improve public safety and public health through research-based, health-oriented, and harm reduction interventions. Collect, evaluate, and disseminate data showing LEAD’s impact.
Reduce the number of people entering the criminal justice system for low-level offenses related to drug use, mental health, sex work, and extreme poverty.
Undo racial disparities at the front-end of the criminal justice system.
Sustain funding for alternative interventions by capturing and reinvesting criminal justice system savings.
Strengthen the relationship between law enforcement and the community as the police, local government, service providers, and community stakeholders work in collaboration.
Ease police workload by reducing paperwork and decreasing repeated contact with chronic offenders.
Results of LEAD:
Reduced recidivism for diverted individuals; e.g. Seattle’s 58% reduction in re-arrests of LEAD participants.
Increased retention in housing and employment for diversion program participants.
Significant savings of money and time within criminal justice and healthcare systems; e.g. Santa Fe’s 52% savings in criminal justice and emergency medical systems and 17% overall cost savings to the community.
Albany officers on the beat value and appreciate pre-arrest diversion: their time is spent better, job satisfaction improves, officer burnout declines, and police-community relations improve. You are invited to join the movement to help bring LEAD to Rochester and Monroe County