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Washington State Institute for Public Policy

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Washington's Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD) & Recovery Navigator Program (RNP): Opportunities to Improve Pre-Booking Diversion Fidelity
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Travis Taniguchi, Alexandra Johnson, Leah Hardenbergh - June 2025

Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD) was originally developed in Seattle to divert people away from the criminal legal system before they were booked into jail. In 2019, state funding was provided to expand LEAD into four pilot communities. In 2021, additional funding was provided through the Recovery Navigator Program (RNP) to expand pre-booking diversion statewide. Both LEAD and RNP seek to connect people with housing and mental and substance use disorder treatment to address underlying issues that drive frequent interactions with law enforcement. This report describes the state of LEAD and RNP implementation, barriers to achieving higher fidelity to core principles of pre-arrest diversion, the use of technical support from the LEAD National Support Bureau (LSB), and a benefit-cost analysis.

To address these topics, we conducted 60 interviews with 91 people involved in the diversion process, reviewed administrative data collected by the LSB, and conducted a systematic literature review, meta-analysis, and benefit-cost analysis. Results suggested that LEAD and RNP programs face considerable challenges in implementing pre-booking diversion. Major barriers include limited buy-in from criminal legal system professionals, insufficient capacity and funding, and lack of necessary resources such as housing and substance use disorder treatment. Clarifying the relationship between LEAD core principles and RNP uniform standards, facilitating technical assistance, and implementing improved data-sharing technologies would help to improve program fidelity and clarify uncertainty among diversion system actors. The benefit-cost analysis suggested that for every $1 invested in these programs, $7.39 in benefits was returned.

Download:   Report    Executive Summary  
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