Reducing Probation Violations in Pima County, Arizona. Subtitle Lessons Learned Under the Safety and Justice Challenge
By Evelyn F. McCoy, Natalie Lima
Pima County, Arizona, has designed and implemented several probation-focused programs and revised probation policies and practices with support from the Safety and Justice Challenge (SJC)—an initiative funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation to reduce overincarceration and disparities in jail populations. With these efforts, the county aimed to reduce its overall jail population, jail incarceration for people on probation, and the number of probation violations.
WHY THIS MATTERS
Probation is often intended as an alternative to incarceration, but probation supervision can often lead to incarceration when a person is unable to comply with often strict and extensive supervision conditions. On any given day, approximately 280,000 people are incarcerated for violations of supervision standards, including technical violations and new offenses. Twenty percent of people in the total US jail population are incarcerated for probation violations.
Incarcerating people for probation violations further burdens already strained jail systems and contributes to mass incarceration in the United States. Reducing the number of people incarcerated for probation violations is therefore an important carceral reform strategy.
WHAT WE FOUND
In this case study, we describe Pima County’s implementation experiences and lessons that other jurisdictions implementing probation reform may find informative. The county’s main probation reform strategies included creating a new program to reengage people who abscond, reducing petitions to revoke, reducing barriers to success on probation, and decreasing jail stays for people on probation. We explore stakeholders’ perceptions of these efforts and their experiences with their implementation.
Lessons that other jurisdictions might find informative from Pima County include the following:
Using data-driven approaches and research can increase effectiveness. Many jurisdictions may be hesitant to evaluate their strategies and interventions or unable to because they do not have the resources to support hiring a data analyst. But being able to track and analyze outcomes can help increase effectiveness and efficiency.
Delivering individualized support for people on probation requires more support options. Having one or two strategies to support people on probation has not been enough for Pima County, especially as it has transitioned to more individualized supervision.
Rebuilding trust with people directly impacted by the criminal legal system takes significant time and energy from probation officers. If community members do not trust representatives of the probation department to help them, even the best-designed programs will be underutilized.
HOW WE DID IT
To develop this case study, the research team relied on four data sources: semistructured interviews with Pima County stakeholders; analysis of relevant materials (such as SJC progress reports and publicly available documents); a recent study by Khalid and coauthors on the use of probation in Pima County; and Institute for State and Local Governance analysis of jail population trends.
Between December 2022 and March 2023, we conducted one-on-one interviews with Pima County stakeholders representing the public defender’s office, the adult probation department, the superior court, the sheriff’s department, and county service providers.
We collected information on participants’ professional backgrounds and roles in probation work, Pima County’s probation reform landscape, specific probation reform strategies and policies, the design and implementation of those strategies, and challenges, successes, and impacts. After data collection, we transcribed the interviews and uploaded them to NVivo, a qualitative analysis software, where we analyzed stakeholders’ responses for trends using a codebook developed for this case study.
RESEARCH AREAS
Washington, DC: Urban Institute, Justice Policy Center, 2024. 32p.