Probation and Parole - Supervision

Two Probation Officer/Offender Contact Sessions (PO 1 & 2) [Motivational Interviewing]

These two role-played scenarios can be used in training or skill coding sessions as examples of:

1. A traditional probation supervision session
2. A supervision session during which the probation officer uses motivational interviewing skills.

Implementing the Family Support Approach for Community Supervision

Implementation of the Family Support Approach for Community Supervision is explained. This publication includes the following sections: introduction and overview; guiding principles for putting this system into practice; tools and techniques for putting this approach into practice; practical application of guiding principles; administrative support; and "The Oklahoma Family Justice Project: Improving Community Supervision Outcomes One Family at a Time" by Justin Jones and Carol Shapiro.

Reducing Recidivism Through Probation Supervision: What We Know and Don't Know From Four Decades of Research

“This article is about the relationship between recidivism rates and supervision skills used by probation officers (or others who supervise offenders on community-based orders or parole). It focuses on routine day-to-day supervision rather than on intensive supervision programs or other specialized programs or interventions.” Issues discussed include: the impact of probation officer skills; and skills or practices that are consistently related to reduced recidivism-pro-social modeling and reinforcement, problem solving, the use of cognitive techniques, work-client relationship, and risk level of...

Effective Responses to Offender Behavior: Lessons Learned from Probation and Parole Supervision

“Using effective strategies to keep probationers and parolees crime- and drug-free and curb their revocation rates is among the most important issues facing our community corrections supervision system ... Based on solid research, two key strategies that many agencies have begun to implement are the use of swift, certain, and proportionate sanctions to respond to violations, and the use of incentives to promote and reinforce compliance among probationers and parolees” (p. 1-2). This report does a great job in explaining...

Dosage Probation: Rethinking the Structure of Probation Sentences

This is a great introduction to a new probation strategy which links “the duration of probation supervision to the optimal amount of intervention an offender needs in order to reduce risk of reoffense”.

This monograph “provides a policy and practice framework upon which this new model of supervision can be constructed. It offers a review of evidence-based approaches to reducing recidivism in our communities, the most recent research on dosage, and its applicability to sentencing and community supervision practices. It...

Corrections Statistical Analysis Tool (CSAT)-Probation

"This dynamic analysis tool allows you to examine data collected by the Annual Probation Survey on adult probationers. It includes all adults, regardless of conviction status, who have been placed under the supervision of a probation agency as part of a court order. (Adults are persons subject to the jurisdiction of an adult court or correctional agency.) You can create Custom Tables of the number on adults on probation at yearend. This tool also allows you to create custom tables...

Nebraska's Justice Reinvestment Approach: Reduce Prison Overcrowding and Expanding Probation and Parole Supervision

"Faced with a prison system at 159 percent of capacity and expected to grow to 170 percent of capacity by FY2020, state leaders in Nebraska pursued justice reinvestment. After extensive analyses identified key challenges in the state’s criminal justice system, policymakers developed a policy framework designed to reduce prison overcrowding and expand the use of probation and parole supervision. Justice reinvestment legislation was enacted in May 2015 and is projected to avert $306 million in construction and operations costs by...

Justice Reinvestment in Kansas: Strengthening Probation Supervision and Promoting Successful Reentry

This report describes efforts of Kansas to implement justice reinvestment-"a data-driven approach designed to reduce corrections spending and reinvest savings in strategies that can reduce recidivism and improve public safety". Kansas's justice reinvestment policy framework "designed to strengthen community-based supervision, promote successful reentry, and target scare resources more effectively" and legislation created to support this framework are reviewed (p. 1). Sections contained in this brief include: background; key public safety provisions in HB 2170; developing policy solutions-legislation (HB2170) and its...