Key Takeaways
- WPC’s review finds Congress relied on exaggerated claims about Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD) when expanding federal grant eligibility in 2016.
- The widely cited claim that LEAD reduced reoffending by 58% misrepresented a statistical change in arrest odds as a reduction in crime.
- LEAD’s 2015 pilot evaluation found no statistically significant differences in criminal charges or non-warrant arrests and did not establish that LEAD caused crime reductions.
- LEAD expanded to more than 20 states and attracted hundreds of millions of dollars in public and private funding.
- WPC calls for a national pause on LEAD, independent program audits and congressional scrutiny of its funding
Introduction
False versions of LEAD1 claims spread widely in Congress across 2015, 2016, and beyond. In May 2016, LEAD's largest and most prominent false number was used as the primary evidence for an amendment inserting drug diversion programs into federal law for the first time. Following this, hundreds of millions of public dollars were directed by name towards LEAD programs.
A large majority of publicly distributed information from 2015-2026 regarding the LEAD program’s evidence base contains significant factual and statistical errors. Large in both number and size, the inaccuracies have permeated LEAD adoption and funding across more than twenty states and have been codified into congressional appropriations, government grants, private donations, municipal budgets, and state-and-local legislation. Cumulatively, the errors incorrectly depict LEAD as significantly reducing reoffending and felony offenses while increasing employment.
