Since 2015, the Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD) model has been hailed as a transformative miracle in criminal justice reform. Promoted as a humane, evidence-based alternative to the arrest and prosecution of people who use drugs, LEAD has spread across dozens of cities in more than twenty states. It has been celebrated at the White House, showcased to persuade lawmakers to codify drug-diversion programs into federal law, and buoyed by hundreds of millions of dollars in federal, state, local, and philanthropic funding.

However, this national movement was founded on a statistical illusion. A large majority of publicly distributed information regarding LEAD’s success over the last eleven years contains significant factual and statistical errors. These falsehoods, which drastically exaggerated the program’s evidence for improving lives and reducing crime, fueled LEAD’s passage through Congress with bipartisan support. But the truth hides behind its praised numbers and congressional favor: the program’s underlying research never showed a convincing reduction in crime, did not show people recovering from addiction, and never showed people becoming employed and self-sufficient.