Advocates will tell you with certainty that parole and probation agencies should use evidence-based practices like intermediate sanctions for violations instead of revocations (i.e., returns to court or the parole commission for violation hearings) and will insist that most violations are for technical reasons (i.e., not reporting, not making restitution, escape) rather than new crimes. Most suggest that higher-risk offenders should be a priority regarding resource allocations. They embrace cognitive behavioral theory as effective. parole and probation supervision

The data below challenges those assertions.

Pew-Reforming Parole and Probation

The verbiage below from Pew provides an overview as to changes they support as to parole and probation strategies.

Since late 2020, at least 20 states have passed measures to update and improve their community supervision systems. That these efforts moved forward during this historic period reflects the scope of the issue: At the end of 2020, almost 3.9 million Americans—or 1 in 66 adults—were on probation or parole, more than double the number in jails and state and federal prisons (1.8 million).

Several of these state reforms focus on three key objectives: reducing the amount of time people stay on probation, changing rules about revoking probation, and lowering or eliminating fees. Those three goals are also highlighted in The Pew Charitable Trusts’ new brief, “Five Evidence-Based Policies Can Improve Community Supervision,” which assesses the extent to which the 50 states have enacted five important data-informed community supervision policies. And those policies, in turn, are part of a larger set of more than 50, advanced in Pew and Arnold Ventures’ 2020 community supervision framework, that state and local officials can use to shrink and strengthen supervision systems. parole and probation supervision

parole and probation supervision
parole and probation supervision

US Sentencing Commission Evaluation-Federal Offenders

Federal agencies supervising offenders in the community have spent a great deal of time and training during the last ten to fifteen years on “evidence-based” practices. Federal parole and probation agencies generally have smaller caseloads and better resources than their state counterparts.

Program examples include the use of intermediate sanctions, motivational interviewing and gaining the trust of offenders, cognitive behavioral therapy, and risk assessments. parole and probation supervision

It should be in APA guidelines

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