Probation and parole's growing caseloads and workload allocation: Strategies for managerial decision making (original) (raw)
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The Howard Journal of Criminal Justice, 2008
Historically, the efficacy of probation and parole policies and practices have been judged by the general public, politicians, and many professional insiders by sensationalised crimes involving individuals sentenced to community supervision. The probation and parole profession has not established mechanisms to clearly articulate its public value; doing so would foster the development of policies and practices that derive more from empirical research evidence and sound theory than political faddism. The failure within the probation and parole profession to come to broad agreement regarding desired outcomes and to establish evidence-based and/or theoretically-sound professional principles has created a policy lacuna that is too often filled by elected officials who lack an understanding of the history, science, and philosophy of probation and parole. Probation and parole agencies should focus on producing publicly-valued results and disseminating easily-understood information that justifies their important niche within America's criminal justice system.
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28 Federal Sentencing Reporter 231
The crescendo against overincarceration continues as the costs-financially but also societally-mount. In addition to the 2.3 million people who are incarcerated, another 4.7 million people are under supervision of the correctional system. 1 Most of them-almost 3.9 million-serve a probationary sentence. In the federal system, the number of probationers is very small, 2 especially compared to the number of those on supervised release. 3 The ratio is almost the opposite from the overall correctional population, where probationers make up about 80 percent of those under community supervision. 4 Despite years of neglect, the problem of what to do with the non-incarcerated correctional population is too big to ignore. This Issue looks at various dimensions of noncustodial supervision-including probation and post-confinement sanctions such as supervised release and parole-in the states and at the federal level.
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Criminology, 1993
Jail and prison populations in the United States have continued to grow unabated during the past two decades but crime rates have not declined. Partly in response to the pressures caused by burgeoning correctional populations, the use of alternatives to incarceration has expanded. An ongoing debate centers on the effectiveness of these alternatives. Many criminal justice professionals and some researchers question whether such alternatives seriously restrict the criminal justice system 's ability to incapacitate the active offender. This study deals specifically with two alternatives to incarceration: probation and parole. We examine offender recidivism for a sample of probationers and parolees active in New Orleans, Louisiana, and offer a new approach to addressing the effectiveness issue. Past research has evaluated the effectiveness of alternatives by examining failure rates of diverted offenders. High failure rates, we argue, do not necessarily imply a significant loss of th...
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No.: ISBN 0-335-09377-9, 1991
To download this abstract, check the box next to the NCJ number then click the "Back To Search Results" link. Click the "Download" button on the Search Results page. ... This study examines the effect of changes in the criminal justice system and society in general upon the ...
Mental health specialized probation caseloads: Are they effective?
International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, 2014
With the large and growing number of persons with mental illnesses under probation supervision, a form of specialized probation called specialized mental health caseload (SMHC) has been implemented. This study explores the effectiveness of a prototypic SMHC implemented statewide. A quasi-experimental design was used to compare criminal justice, mental health, and community engagement outcomes among three caseloads: a newly established SMHC supervising no more than 30 clients per officer (N = 1367); an established SMHC supervising roughly 50 clients per officer (N = 495); and a traditional caseload of clients receiving mental health treatment and supervised by officers with average caseloads of over 130 clients (N = 5453). Using a mixed methods approach, we found that the SMHC was implemented with high adherence to fidelity, and comparisons based on different caseload samples generally support the effectiveness of the specialized mental health caseload, particularly on criminal justice outcomes. Future studies using random assignment are needed to examine the connection among mental health symptoms, compliance with treatment and probation supervision, and recidivism.
Federal Sentencing Reporter, 2016
After four decades of steady growth, U.S. states' prison populations finally appear to be declining, driven by a range of sentencing and policy reforms. One of the most popular reform suggestions is to expand probation supervision in lieu of incarceration. However, the classic socio-legal literature suggests that expansions of probation instead widen the net of penal control and lead to higher incarceration rates. This article reconsiders probation in the era of mass incarceration, providing the first comprehensive evaluation of the role of probation in the build-up of the criminal justice system. The results suggest that probation was not the primary driver of mass incarceration in most states, nor is it likely to be a simple panacea to mass incarceration. Rather, probation serves both capacities, acting as an alternative and as a net-widener, to varying degrees across time and place. Moving beyond the question of diversion versus net widening, this article presents a new theoretical model of the probation-prison link that examines the mechanisms underlying this dynamic. Using regression models and case studies, I analyze how states can modify the relationship between probation and imprisonment by changing sentencing outcomes and the practices of probation supervision. When combined with other key efforts, reforms to probation can be part of the movement to reverse mass incarceration.
Drivers of the Sentenced Population: Probation Analysis
2013
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. • Between 1993 and 2011, an increasing proportion of felony probationers in Illinois were accounted for by females, whites, Hispanics, and older probationers. • The majority of felons discharged from probation were successfully terminated from supervision throughout the period examined. The proportion of felons discharged from probation as a result of a revocation of probation for either a technical violation or a new offense remained stable, and relatively low (at or below 10 percent statewide), throughout the time period examined. • Success on probation can mean less reliance on prison, but failure on probation can result in commitment to the Illinois Department of Corrections. Individuals who had their probation revoked or were reconvicted of a new crime while on probation accounted for roughly 15 percent of all those sentenced to prison, a proportion that remained relatively stable through the time period examined.
Surveying the Field: State-Level Findings from the 2008 Parole Practices Survey
PsycEXTRA Dataset
The Pew Center on the States is a division of the Pew Charitable Trusts that identifies and advances effective solutions to critical issues facing states. Pew is a nonprofit organization that applies a rigorous, analytical approach to improve public policy, inform the public and stimulate civic life. www.pewcenteronthestates.org This report was prepared under a grant from the Pew Center on the States. The Urban Institute is a nonprofit, nonpartisan policy research and educational organization that examines the social, economic, and governance problems facing the nation. The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders.