ABSTRACT
Hazel has argued that youth justice can be seen simply in terms of a recurrent dispute between proponents of welfare and justice, and that other supposed alternatives are simply variations on these two themes. Within the broad framework of youth justice, it could reasonably be expected that diversion reflects many of the same characteristics and is shaped by the same contributing influences. In keeping with the approach taken by McAra and others in relation to youth justice more generally, the author seeks to distinguish some proposed models of diversion according to a number of relevant criteria; namely, their assumptions about childhood, their modes of practice, their organisational arrangements, and their success criteria. On this basis, the author tries to develop a schematic framework for understanding the differences between the four models implicit in the preceding narrative: welfarist diversion; rights based diversion; risk-based diversion; and, finally, responsibilising diversion.
