Nearly two-thirds of all troubled juveniles referred to the Harris County District Attorney’s Office are now diverted into rehabilitative educational programs and away from incarceration, District Attorney Kim Ogg announced today.

In a news conference with some of Harris County’s top juvenile justice officials this morning, Ogg noted recent figures that show nearly 15,000 cases, most involving non-violent or misdemeanor charges, have been diverted away from the juvenile court system in the past six years. Ogg said that nearly 63% of all cases referred to her office last year alone resulted in diversions.

“Our juvenile diversion programs, most of which are less than 3 years old, are working exactly as we envisioned when we began them,” Ogg said. “We are separating out Harris County’s most violent and dangerous juveniles and taking them to court and locking them up. But the remainder – many of whom are merely kids struggling with school frustrations and family problems – are receiving the individualized attention they need to keep them from falling back into trouble.”

Ogg praised John Jordan and the prosecutors in his Juvenile Division for working with Henry Gonzales and his Harris County Juvenile Probation Department to design and implement six juvenile diversion programs that now enjoy successful completion rates of between 71% and 91%.

“These children are now sitting in classrooms instead of jail cells,” Ogg said. “I’m enormously proud of them and of the prosecutors and juvenile probation officials that made that possible.”