Effective Probation Strategies to Respond to Signals of Poor Progress on Community Supervision

Abstract

With over 4 million adults under community supervision and an average of 30% that do not fare well, an unanswered question is which strategies reduce the likelihood of technical, absconding, and new arrest violations during the early phase of supervision. Utilizing data on 32,335 moderate to high-supervised individuals on supervision in North Carolina, the study found that success during the first 6 months is due to probation officers’ use of incentives to promote positive behavior and swift community-based consequences to address negative behavior, prioritizing treatment services or cognitive programs, increasing monitoring requirements, and using skill-building worksheets to increase engagement and build rapport. Officer actions are more important than individual characteristics, and can promote success for those that are under the age of 31, have more complex needs, and are identified as at-risk for violating supervision. Future studies should explore these concepts more directly regarding their relationship with recidivism.

Identifying Multilevel Community Supervision Challenges to Inform Diversion Approaches for People With Mental Illnesses

“…Lack of housing or transportation can impact a person’s stability at the individual level, and both factors have been empirically associated with probation violations and/or recidivism. Specifically, a recent article (Breno et al, 2023) showed that among the general population of people on probation, housing, and transportation were both associated with a higher odds ratio of subsequent probation violations, including absconding, technical violations, and violations due to new crime. Access to these critical resources depends on the existence of affordable housing stock and low- or no-cost transportation options that are accessible to people with mental illnesses in the community.…”

“…While this study alone cannot offer a comprehensive, empirically driven model of diversion across the criminal legal system, the findings discussed here interrogate traditional treatment-first or treatment-only models and call for the inclusion of macro-level factors that impact and, in some cases, predict ongoing involvement in the criminal legal system. Although ambitious, a comprehensive framework for diversion must include a both-and approach that maintains focus on individual-level supports (e.g., treatment) and predictors of recidivism and violations (e.g., housing and transportation; Breno et al, 2023), while also targeting the macro- or system-level factors that create conditions for recidivism at the individual level (e.g., lack of affordable housing stock in the local community, limited transportation access, few available jobs for people with mental illness and a criminal record, treatment service scarcity).…”