Philly DA aims to divert more juvenile offenders out of the adult criminal justice system

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Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner said there should be more alternatives to traditional prosecution for juvenile offenders. He hopes to prevent more young people from spending time in jail or ending up with a criminal record.

The move comes after a year that saw a significant decrease in adult crime in Philadelphia.

“We want them to be successful, we want them to increase public safety in the same way as diversion for adults for gun possession turned out,” Krasner said in a news conference Tuesday morning.

That effort paid off, Krasner said, “despite all the heat we took.” He said those who went through that adult diversion program saw recidivism cut by 75%.

Assistant DA Jordan King, who runs the juvenile diversion program, said diversion is better than jail time and a criminal record for young people.

“We divert youth cases because we know that the promotion of accountability, safety, victim restoration, and redemption requires that we work with community-based experts to diagnose these multi-pronged challenges so that we can remove barriers to success,” he said.

King says one example of success is a program that deals with young people who’ve stolen cars.

“We work with individuals for five weeks, teaching decision-making and critical thinking skills. But also teaching them the impact of the law and how it could affect them if they don’t do well in the program,” King said.

“We’ve had the great pleasure of having multiple success stories in terms of connecting individuals with forklift certifications, CPR and flagger certification so that they can start to think about a path to success,” he said.

Giving youth the possibility of a job and a career is a key point of the diversion efforts.

In order to diversify the diversion program even further, the DA’s office has grown from eight partners in 2019 to 30 partners in 2024.

Krasner also wants to see Pennsylvania remove the mandatory adult charging for juveniles for some offenses in a process known as “direct file.”

“I am not a fan of direct file, but I think there is a whole group of things the state legislature could do, perhaps one of the most important of which is to replace the facilities that were closed that were placement facilities, so that we have proper rehabilitative, robust facilities, for juveniles who commit serious offenses, but who should be addressed in the juvenile system,” he said.

Krasner is up for re-election this year, and he is facing a Democratic challenger after Municipal Court Judge Pat Dugan announced his resignation from the bench to run for the DA’s job.