5.6 Diversion: Concept and Techniques

The concept: the child's exit from the formal system — the case resolved without adjudication, wherever the child's reform and the community's safety allow (the Beijing Rules' preference; the labeling theory's answer — Unit 3). The techniques by stage (the syllabus's own three): Pre-trial diversion: the police-and-prosecution screen — the warning-and-admonition; the family-and-community referral (the parents' undertaking; the school's-and-counselling involvement); no charge filed; During-trial diversion: the court's own exit — the conditional discharge-and-supervision; the mediation-and-restitution (the victim's repair — the petty offence's settlement); the case's withdrawal on the undertakings' satisfaction; Post-trial diversion: the disposition's non-custodial forms — the supervision, the community service, the treatment orders; and the records' non-stigmatising handling (the sealing logic). The criteria (the discipline's gates): the minor offence; the first conflict; the child's-and- victim's consent; the community's safety. The frame for the exam: diversion is not leniency; it is the system's own discipline against the label's harm.