Community-Based Supervision: Increased Public Safety, Decreased Expenditures

"A longstanding and growing body of research shows that pre-trial detention and post-adjudication incarceration for youth can have extremely negative ramifications for the youth’s ability to get back on the right track. Youth prisons and detention facilities have been shown to be dangerous, ineffective, and unnecessary. Community-based supervision programs for youth both cost less than confinement and provide increased rehabilitative benefits for youth. This brief tip sheet will describe a few fundamental characteristics of community-based supervision programs and will summarize their average costs" (p. 1). Sections of this publication include: introduction to community-based supervision programs for youth; benefits of these programs; selected key components for youth supervised programs; six program examples; cost of youth incarceration; cost of community-based supervision programs-if only 50% of the juveniles detained during 2011 in the U.S. were supervised in the community for nine months, almost 50% of costs (or $333,000) would have been saved; and conclusion.