Out of court disposals have been used in England and Wales for decades. The current six tier framework of out of court disposals has evolved over time and includes community resolutions, penalty notices for disorder, khat warnings, cannabis warnings, simple cautions and conditional cautions. In general, conditional cautions have been seen as the top tier of that six tier framework, reserved for the most serious offences for which an out of court disposal would be considered.

In 2022 the Government was legislating to introduce a new ‘two tier’ out of court disposal (OOCD) framework, in which the new diversionary caution is substantially a like for like replacement for the existing conditional caution. This review and synthesis of the available research on the use of the conditional caution was produced to inform the implementation of the new diversionary caution by all police forces in 2023.

Published in March 2022 by the Centre for Justice Innovation.