Australian police diversion for cannabis offences: Assessing program outcomes and cost effectiveness
September 2014
Staff:
NDARC: Dr Marian Shanahan, Dr Caitlin Hughes, Matthew O’Reilly
Other Collaborators:
Dr Tim McSweeney, Institute for Criminal Policy Research, Birkbeck, University of London
Project description:
Police diversion is one of Australia’s most utilised interventions for drug offenders, yet there remains key gaps in knowledge about the outcomes and the cost-effectiveness of such approaches. For example, few studies have successfully obtained a control group of offenders who have not been diverted or have looked at program impacts beyond recidivism.
Using a purpose built national online survey, this study will evaluate the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of three different forms of police diversion for cannabis use/possession offences, namely cautions, expiation and warnings, versus a traditional criminal justice response.
Those who have been detected by police for a cannabis use or possession offence in the last three-nine months can take part in the online survey at: http://www.cannabisdiversionsurvey.com.au/
For more about this project: Go to NDARC's website.
