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A pre-arrest diversion program that launched in downtown Cincinnati last summer has now expanded to Norwood and Colerain Township.
Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD) is headed by the Addiction Response Coalition and funded by a $500,000 federal Justice Department grant. Officers are trained to connect low-level offenders with a treatment case manager instead of taking them to jail.
Forty-seven people have participated in the program since it began last July. Program administrator Meagan Gosney says most participants are social contact referrals. A social contact referral is for individuals that officers may encounter, that the officers know that that individual needs help, but they don t want to wait for them to do something bad or commit an offense in order to get them the help that they need, Gosney said.