Both are busy inner-city areas, both have recently introduced new alternatives to custody, and both systems have been monitored for a number of years. Both systems divert a significant number of juveniles to informal action. Although the police in both cities play a role in diverting juveniles to out-of-court dispositions, in Amsterdam this process is substantially assisted by prosecutorial diversion. Newcastle has an office of the prosecutor, but its impact on diversion is insignificant. Juveniles in the court systems of the two cities have striking similarities in terms of age, gender, offenses, and prior records. In Amsterdam 47 percent of the cases had unconditional custody imposed, and an additional 28.3 percent had conditional custody imposed. In Newcastle, however, only 10.9 percent were removed from the community through a care of custody order. Financial and other community-based sentences were the most frequent dispositions in Newcastle. 8 references and appended data