In Florida, introducing civil citations for young offenders has met with mixed success

Punishing young offenders can often ensure that they have a long relationship with the criminal justice system. But more and more authorities have chosen diversion policies such as civil citation in order to reduce the likelihood of future offending. In new research, Melissa Nadel, George Pesta, Thomas Blomberg, William Bales, and Mark Greenwald look at Florida's civil citation program, finding that while there was little evidence of diversion being applied to those who would otherwise have received no sanction, most counties did not use the program to any meaningful extent. However, amongst those that did, juvenile arrests dropped significantly.