After completing diversion, police can seek to have the associated charges dismissed by the court and no conviction will be entered.
Who qualifies?
Diversion is a voluntary process and individuals participating in the scheme can therefore withdraw at any stage.
Diversion is typically used to resolve low-level offences and for adults. Youths (those under 17) are dealt with in the Youth Court.
Because diversion is a restorative-approach, it can only be considered when an individual accepts full responsibility for the offending, as outlined in a police summary of the offending.
Diversion is therefore unavailable to those who plead not guilty. However, an initial plea of not guilty does not mean an individual cannot later be eligible for diversion if they subsequently acknowledge responsibility.
Who doesn’t qualify?
Crimes In New Zealand are divided into four categories, category one being the least serious offences and category four being the most serious.
Category one offences are where the defendant can only be fined, or sentenced to a community-based sentence such as community work or supervision, rather than imprisonment. People who commit these offences are most often considered for diversion.
Category four offences, such as murder and manslaughter, are not considered for diversion because the offence does not meet the low end of offending criteria.
Some offences are also mandatorily excluded from the diversion scheme, and include:
· Careless driving causing death or injury
· Any offence which carries the requirement that a judge impose a mandatory minimum disqualification period following conviction (such as excess breath alcohol, driving while disqualified, sustained loss of traction)
· Infringement-only traffic offences, which will not result in a conviction (these are dealt with through the Traffic Compliance Scheme)
· Offending regulated through the work of the Commercial Vehicle Safety Team (eg road user charges and overloading, transport licensing offences, logbook and driving hours offences), for which there is an alternative compliance regime
· And breaching of court orders (eg. protection orders, restraining orders, suppression orders)
Exceptions
There are of course a few exceptions:
A person might still qualify for diversion if the offending is part of an underlying problem like drug or alcohol dependency that could be treated with counselling, or if they have committed a crime previously but it was a long time ago.
How do you go about getting diversion?
Police can offer diversion after a first appearance in a District Court.
They’ll request the court remand the case and then schedule a meeting with the defendant to discuss it. At that meeting they’ll ask if the person has admitted their offending and if they’ve shown any remorse.
After that interview and the person has accepted responsibility and agreed to any conditions the police might have they’ll be required to sign a diversion agreement.
If there’s a victim to the offending they’ll be consulted but ultimately it’s the police that will decide if diversion will be granted.
If diversion is granted it’s not compulsory to tell a prospective employer about it and it won’t show up on a criminal record.
Some stats
According to Statistics New Zealand data, 3003 people received diversion in 2022, roughly half the number of people who were granted it in 2015.
Those numbers show a steady decline over the years of the number of people qualifying for the scheme.
