Judicial diversion

Judicial diversion describes any mechanism that routes a case out of the standard criminal-trial pipeline: drug-treatment programs in lieu of prosecution, victim-offender mediation, deferred prosecution agreements, or conditional dismissals. Thailand has experimented with drug-treatment diversion since amendments to the Narcotics Code (B.E. 2564) but the scope remains narrow and the criteria are not transparent. The absence of robust diversion routes contributes to the volume of drug-offence prosecutions, which in turn fills the prisons — drug offences account for approximately 73% of the inmate population (FIDH 2025).