Criminal justice reform is a bust and hidden data told the truth all along

America’s blue cities and states have made the criminal-justice system a revolving door for prolific offenders.Police arrest them.Prosecutors charge them ..

.sometimes.Then bail reforms, diversion programs and alternatives to incarceration send them right back onto the streets to be arrested again.

And again.New York dramatically curtailed cash bail and pretrial detention.California embraced diversion and alternatives to incarceration.New Jersey largely replaced cash bail with a system favoring pretrial release.Those states, along with cities nationwide, poured millions into programs designed to keep offenders out of jail — based in part on the evidence provided by an approach pioneered in Seattle, Wash., in 2011.But that “evidence-based” effort wasn’t nearly as successful as America was told.Seattle’s Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion, or LEAD, diverts offenders away from jail and prosecution into case management and services.Its stated primary goal: reducing recidivism.Participants in LEAD, its boosters said, were 58% less likely to be arrested for any crime; felony charges against them dropped 39%.They were 46% more likely to “be on the employment continuum” and 89% more likely to be permanently housed — dramatic improvements.In 2019, LEAD architect Lisa Daugaard invited me to meet with her organization and hear them out.Her team told me success stories and heartbreaking tales about addiction and homelessness to explain why diversion was more compassionate and effective than putting offenders behind bars.So I asked the obvious question: Where’s the data?They couldn’t show me.Seven years later, we finally have it.Eric Zimmerman, safety solutions policy director for the Washington Policy Center, explored LEAD’s numbers in a new policy brief released this month.He discovered zero clear difference in arrest rates between LEAD participants and a control group.Of 176 LEAD participants, 91% remained unemployed, contrary to LEAD’s claims.Of 1...