MAY CONTAIN MARKUP

By Alexis M. Durham III

After 300 years of the American struggle with crime and punishment-related issues, the nation seems less able to deal with them now than at any other time in history. Why have we failed? Is the worst yet to come?In Crisis and Reform, criminology expert Alexis M. Durham III explores the most serious problems currently plaguing America's correctional system, their historical background, and possible solutions.Topics covered include:--Prison Crowding-AIDS in Prison-Difficulties Associated with Older Inmates-Women in Prison-Changing the Offender-Alternatives to Incarceration, including Electronic Monitoring, Intensive Supervision, House Arrest, Community Services, and Day-Reporting Centers-Boot Camps-Prison Privatization-The Death Penalty

Jones & Bartlett Learning, 1994, 377 pages

may contain markup

By Jean Dunbabin

This book explores the growing importance of prisons, both lay and ecclesiastical, in western Europe between 1000 and 1300. It attempts to explain what captors hoped to achieve by restricting the liberty of others, the means of confinement available to them, and why there was an increasingly close link between captivity and suspected criminal activity. It discusses conditions within prisons, the means of release open to some captives, and writing in or about prison.

Springer, Oct 23, 2002, 207 pages

MAY CONTAIN MARKUP

By NORVAL MORRIS, MICHAEL TONRY

Across the country prisons are jammed to capacity and, in extreme cases, barges and mobile homes are used to stem the overflow. Probation officers in some cities have caseloads of 200 and more--hardly a manageable number of offenders to track and supervise. And with about one million people in prison and jail, and two and a half million on probation, it is clear we are experiencing a crisis in our penal system. In Between Prison and Probation, Norval Morris and Michael Tonry, two of the nation's leading criminologists, offer an important and timely strategy for alleviating these problems. They argue that our overwhelmed corrections system cannot cope with the flow of convicted offenders because the two extremes of punishment--imprisonment and probation--are both used excessively, with a near-vacuum of useful punishments in between. Morris and Tonry propose instead a comprehensive program that relies on a range of punishment including fines and other financial sanctions, community service, house arrest, intensive probation, closely supervised treatment programs for drugs, alcohol and mental illness, and electronic monitoring of movement. Used in rational combinations, these "intermediate" punishments would better serve the community than our present polarized choice. Serious consideration of these punishments has been hindered by the widespread perception that they are therapeutic rather than punitive. The reality, however, Morris and Tonry argue, "is that the American criminal justice system is both too severe and too lenient--almost randomly." Systematically implemented and rigorously enforced, intermediate punishments can "better and more economically serve the community, the victim, and the criminal than the prison terms and probation orders they supplant." Between Prison and Probation goes beyond mere advocacy of an increasing use of intermediate punishments; the book also addresses the difficult task of fitting these punishments into a comprehensive, fair and community-protective sentencing system.

Oxford University Press, Sep 12, 1991, 294 pages

By Michael F. TenEyck, Sarah A. El Sayed, Clay M. Driscoll and Krysta N. Knox

Racial inequality in arrest is a social problem that has challenged the United States for as long as police records have been kept. Prior work documents the extent of the disparity and observational studies have attempted to sort out the mechanisms that explain why the disparity exists. Building on the “constructivist” perspective of race, the current study draws on data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) to assess the degree to which race and skin color explain the observed racial disparity in criminal justice contact and arrest. Results revealed that controlling for criminal behavior and a host of covariates, neither race nor skin color increased the likelihood of police contact. Race, however, was predictive of an increase in the odds of arrest—with Black respondents being 92% more likely to experience arrest than White respondents—and this relationship remained controlling for the effects of skin color, police contact, and prior criminal behavior. These findings suggest that the “race effect” may be due to unobserved biases not related to skin color.

Racial inequality in outcomes related to criminal justice contact and processing is a longstanding topic of concern. Recent evidence suggests that while White individuals are more likely to experience police contact, racial/ethnic minorities are disproportionately arrested when contacted (Beck, 2021; Harrell & Davis, 2020). Additionally, changes in policing techniques have led to increases in police contact and arrests. During the early to mid-2000s, nearly 90 percent of police stops did not result in arrests whereas recent data indicates that now only 65% of police stops do not result in arrests (Novak & Gilbreath, 2023). Findings like this have raised many questions among social scientists. One such question draws attention to the potential sources of the inequality. Is it that criminal justice professionals act discriminatorily? Is it that racial minorities are overinvolved in criminal behavior? Or is the answer more complicated?

In the present study, we build on recent developments from epidemiology and sociology which conceptualizes race in the “constructivist” framework (Barnes, 2018; Sen & Wasow, 2016), meaning the term “race” is defined by more than just skin color. In the constructivist tradition, race captures various aspects of one's life including culture, ancestry, and socioeconomic opportunities. This framework conceptualizes race as a composite measure, such that statistically adjusting for its constituent parts will help to unpack the race effect. In this way, race is examined with more depth and moves past simply categorizing race by groups.

This provided the motivation for analyzing the impact, if any, of skin color on initial contact by police and adulthood arrest. While only briefly touched upon within the criminological literature (Alcalá & Montoya, 2018; Finkeldey & Demuth, 2021; Kizer, 2017), colorism—or the differential treatment of individuals based on the color of their skin—has been shown to offer lighter-skinned citizens more advantages and privileges than darker-skinned citizens (Dixon & Telles, 2017; Monk, 2014; Ryabov, 2016). If skin color has an impact and statistically adjusting for skin color reduces the effect of racial classification on arrest, then we can begin to better understand the “race effect” on the arrest. This is an important endeavor for at least two reasons. First, if skin color, even after adjusting for race, is a predictor of criminal justice processing, then this finding would support arguments that racial biases play a role in criminal justice contact. Second, if skin color is not found to predict criminal justice processing after adjusting for race, it would suggest that other components of the race variable are the mechanisms of action causing racial inequalities.

We believe this is both a timely and broadly important research focus given the increasing scrutiny placed on American criminal justice professionals, especially police officers, and the racial inequality narratives that increasingly dominate colloquial conversation (Trinkner et al., 2019). The findings from this study could help shape the national narrative by identifying the potential sources in need of intervention to reduce the prevalence of inequalities in criminal justice outcomes and aid in criminal justice reforms. But first, the following section will review the available literature that speaks to the association between race and contact with the criminal justice system, the impact of race and skin color on police contact and arrest, and then end with a theoretical framework for the current study

Race and Justice Volume 0: Ahead of Print, 2024

By Bradley Read

This article suggests that the parole dossier may be working to damage prisoners’ sense of their identity through the creation of a carceral script which describes a person whom they do not recognise as themselves, and which leads to an increased narrative labour. Prisoners struggle, therefore, under that labour to form a post-offence identity with which to navigate a complex process such as parole. As identity, and its repair, appear instrumental to desistance, elements of the process, such as the dossier, could be putting hopes of rehabilitation at risk. Using the analysis of 15 prisoner interviews, this article explores a parole process described as undermining agency. A process where risk assessment is perceived poorly and where ultimately the experience can lead to negative impacts on an already fragile self-identity. In conclusion, this article attempts to offer some solutions, to mitigate the negative effects, with a view to maximising the potential impact of the dossier process on future desistance, through the more meaningful involvement of the prisoner at its centre.

Criminology & Criminal Justice Volume 0: Ahead of Print, 2024.

By Sara Wakefield, Lars Højsgaard Andersen

Using unique Danish register data that allow for comparisons across both conviction and incarceration status, this article analyzes the association between pretrial detention and work, family attachment, and recidivism. We find that pretrial detention may impose unique social costs, apart from conviction or additional punishments. Most notably, men who are detained pretrial experience poorer labor market trajectories than men who are convicted of a crime (but not incarcerated). Importantly, this result holds even for men who are detained pretrial but who are not convicted of the crime. Consistent with prior research, we also find that pretrial detention is unrelated to later family formation but might disrupt pre-existing household arrangements. Finally, the associations between pretrial detention and work and family life are not counterbalanced by reductions in recidivism.

Sociological Science 7: 342-366. 2020.

By U.S. Government Accountability Office; Gretta L. Goodwin

Why GAO Did This Study - DOJ’s BOP is responsible for confining individuals in safe, humane, and appropriately secure conditions. In certain circumstances, such as alleged or substantiated violence, BOP can move individuals to restrictive housing, and generally isolate them in cells for up to 23 hours per day. As of October 2023, BOP continued to house about 8 percent of its population (about 12,000 individuals) in these settings. Strengthening management of federal prisons was added to GAO’s high-risk list earlier this year. Among its objectives, GAO was asked to examine the extent to which BOP (1) addressed recommendations from two prior restrictive housing studies; and (2) leveraged facility information to ensure restrictive housing policy compliance and enhance operations. GAO analyzed BOP policies and data; interviewed BOP officials; and conducted non-generalizable interviews with staff and incarcerated individuals at five BOP facilities— selected to cover a range of restrictive housing unit types. What GAO Recommends - GAO is making eight recommendations to BOP, including that it assign responsibility and establish time frames for recommendation implementation and identify the cause of racial disparity in SMU placements. BOP concurred with the eight recommendations but raised related concerns; GAO discusses these in the report.

Washington, DC: U.S. Government Accountability Office, 2024. 79p.

By the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General

The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) is responsible for developing sound correctional practices and adhering to its policies that ensure the safety and security of federal inmates in its care. High-profile inmate deaths at BOP institutions, such as the homicide of James “Whitey” Bulger in 2018 and the suicide of Jeffrey Epstein in 2019, brought national focus to the BOP’s operational and management challenges, and U.S. Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General (OIG) investigations of these deaths identified serious BOP job performance and management failures. Additionally, Congress and prisoner advocacy groups have expressed concerns about the BOP’s efforts to prevent inmate deaths, particularly following several inmate homicides at U.S. Penitentiary (USP) Hazelton and USP Thomson. The OIG initiated this evaluation to assess the circumstances surrounding deaths among inmates at BOP institutions that occurred from fiscal year (FY) 2014 through FY 2021 and to evaluate how the BOP seeks to prevent future deaths. We analyzed the frequency and pattern of deaths among BOP inmates in four categories: (1) suicide, (2) homicide, (3) accident, and (4) those resulting from unknown factors. We also identified potential management deficiencies and systemic issues related to those deaths, including the prevalence of long-standing operational challenges highlighted in prior OIG work. Recommendations We make 12 recommendations to assist the BOP in addressing risk factors that contribute to inmate deaths

Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2024. 111p.

By Kelly Lyn Mitchell  

  This report is one in a series of reports for the Aligning Supervision Conditions with Risk and Needs (ASCRN) project, the goal of which is to reduce probation and parole revocations and reorient community supervision toward promoting success by changing the way probation and parole conditions are imposed. Conditions are requirements that a person on probation or parole must adhere to while serving a period of community supervision. For people on parole, this occurs after the person has served time in prison and is released into the community for a post-prison period of supervision. For people on probation, this period of supervision occurs in the community in lieu of incarceration. The hypothesis for this project was that if probation and parole conditions targeted individuals’ criminogenic needs and were based upon risk level, individuals on supervision would be more successful.1 However, to move to this form of condition setting, we first needed to understand how conditions were being determined and what role, if any, risk and needs assessments played in the condition-setting process. This report sets forth our findings on the parole condition-setting process utilized by the Iowa Parole Board and what role, if any, risk and needs assessments play in the condition-setting process. The findings in this report are based primarily on a legal and policy review and interviews conducted in 2020 with relevant stakeholders who we presumed would have a hand in recommending or imposing supervision conditions, including parole board members, staff, administrative law judges, and parole officers. From this study, we make the following conclusions. Conclusions Parole conditions in Iowa are not tailored to the risk and needs of the individual. Parole conditions in Iowa take a one-size-fits all approach. As explained in this section, several factors converge to create a system where every person on parole receives a lengthy set of conditions within which less than a handful are tailored to the individual needs of the person. ƒ There is a heavy reliance on standard conditions. There is a perception within the state that there are very few standard conditions because they fall into just eight paragraphs. But when the text in each of the eight paragraphs is parsed into individual conditions, there are thirty-five distinct requirements. This extensive set of standard conditions sets what parole board members and parole officers refer to as “standards for behavior,” but the sheer number of conditions is more than any one person could reasonably comply with at one time. ƒ The Parole Board only adds a few special conditions to each case, but it has lost sight of the total number of parole conditions imposed  on individuals. The Parole Board is parsimonious when adding special conditions to each case. Parole board members are concerned about overloading individuals on parole and typically only consider or discuss adding one or two special conditions as each person is paroled. However, because the Parole Board only focuses on setting special conditions, it has lost sight of the total number of standard conditions already imposed on those who are on parole. Several parole board members we spoke to did not know how many standard conditions there were, and some mistakenly thought that conditions they used to impose were no longer available to them when in fact they were already part of the standard conditions. By failing to take the standard conditions into account, the Parole Board undermines its own concern about not overloading people on parole. ƒ Risk assessments are not used to inform condition setting. Iowa utilizes risk and needs assessment throughout the criminal justice process. It informs programming for a person serving time in prison, and case planning for a person once they are released on parole. But risk and needs assessments are not really used in setting the conditions of work release or parole. Staff who prepare the docket for the Parole Board focus on the release decision rather than which conditions to impose, but when they do recommend conditions, they tend to use professional judgment based on past interactions with the person while in prison. Parole board members have access to risk and needs information, but do not really understand it. Instead, they use their best judgment about what conditions to impose. In this way, conditions are not tailored to address the criminogenic needs of the individual. ƒ The Parole Board lacks a feedback mechanism to understand what works in condition setting. Finally, parole board members do not handle parole violations—violations are instead handled by an administrative law judge—so parole board members do not have any way of knowing whether the conditions they impose help or hinder people on parole. Because the Parole Board does not receive any feedback about which conditions work, there is nothing to challenge or inform their professional judgment about which conditions to impose in different situations. Though parole officers are empowered to remove conditions, they do not exercise this power. Instead, parole officers add conditions and selectively enforce the conditions they think aren’t as relevant. Throughout this project, we heard that parole officers remove conditions that aren’t necessary or applicable. However, when asked about this directly, most parole officers indicated that they do not remove conditions. Instead, most talked about adding local conditions such as curfew. Though some parole officers indicated that a few standard conditions are outdated or unnecessary, for the most part, they did not support changing the standard conditions, preferring instead to selectively enforce the conditions they deem most important. Thus, parole officers seek maximum flexibility regarding whether and how to enforce supervision conditions. From the perspective of the person on parole, who has no choice but to conform to all the listed conditions, this way of doing business can be confusing. More crucially, it dilutes the importance of conditions because it becomes unclear for them which conditions must be complied with. 

Minneapolis:  Robina Institute, University of Minnesota, 2023. 48p.

By Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Probation (UK)

A thematic inspection led by HM Inspectorate of Probation has found that most recalls to prison of those serving imprisonment for public protection (IPP) sentences were taken in line with the policy. The inspection also found that better support needs to be in place, both before IPP prisoners are released from prison and during their time back in the community. 

The thematic inspection – A thematic inspection of imprisonment for public protection (IPP) recall decisions includes an analysis of recall events between 01 January 2019 and 21 March 2023 and an in-depth review of 26 recalled IPP prisoners. For the vast majority of these cases, we found the recall to be appropriate as the individual had been exhibiting behaviour similar to that surrounding the original offence or there were concerns that their behaviour could give rise to a serious offence.  

This inspection found: 

• There was a lack of support for those with substance misuse and/or mental health issues. This was often the cause for a deterioration in behaviour leading to recall. 

• Staffing issues meant prisoners experienced a lack of continuity during both custody and the period spent on licence, with some being supervised by several different probation officers (POs). This has led to a lack of trust and an unwillingness to communicate concerns with their POs. 

• People were not prepared well for their release into the community. Many felt overwhelmed with life in the community and struggled to cope.  

This report makes 11 recommendations. Two of these are for the MoJ including to work with other government departments to ensure those serving IPP sentences are able to access appropriate help. Nine recommendations are for HM Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS), including to improve the continuity of case management and ensure those serving IPP sentences are actively managed through multi-agency forums.

Manchester, UK: HMIC, 2023. 69p.

By Kristen Bell

The majority of carceral sentences in the United States include the possibility of discretionary release on parole. Most such sentences, however, are unconstitutionally vague. Their unconstitutionality has gone unnoticed because contemporary scholarship and litigation about vague laws have focused on the U.S. Constitution in lieu of state constitutions. This Article unearths historic state court decisions holding that sentences that end through the discretionary judgment of a parole board are “void for uncertainty.” Although state void for uncertainty doctrines share some similarity with the federal vagueness doctrine, they are far more demanding as applied to criminal punishment. By urging revival of the void for uncertainty doctrine, this Article outlines a novel path for state constitutional litigation and proposes how state legislatures can reform parole statutes to put them on sound constitutional footing.
Cardozo Law Review, 

Volume 44 Issue 5, 2023.

By JUSTICE - Chair of the Committee Professor Nicola Padfield QC (Hon)

  Through the parole system, the State exercises one of its most important functions – the protection of the public from serious criminal offending – and also its most coercive power – the deprivation of an individual’s liberty. It is therefore vital that the process operates effectively and that the decision-making body responsible for determining continued detention can carry out its role fairly and independently. The report recognises the range of positive developments and hard work that have gone into improving the parole system over recent years. However, backlogs and delays remain problematic, in part due to changes in sentencing policy which have resulted in lengthier periods in custody and more complex sentencing regimes. As a result, the parole process continues to be difficult for prisoners and victims to understand and to navigate. This raises a multitude of human rights concerns around effective participation and procedural fairness. The report looks both at the Parole Board itself and the roles and responsibilities of the organisations upon which it depends to receive information and make decisions including prisons, the Public Protection Casework Section, which is responsible for ensuring parole timeframes are complied with as well as building the parole dossier, and the Probation Service, which supervises an individual in the community and has the power to initiate the recall of people for breach of licence conditions. Crucially, the report also questions the purpose of the parole system. For too long and for too many people, public protection has been regarded as synonymous with keeping individuals in prison. Yet rehabilitation and the reduction of crime are vital (and statutory) purposes of the penal system. Viewed in this light, outcomes that result in someone’s continued detention or recall should be seen as a possible failure of the system– for the individual prisoner, their victim, and the general public. This report is intended to offer a comprehensive review by a group of experts in the field, who propose a number of practical, achievable, and well-evidenced recommendations to build a parole system that is truly fit for purpose. 

London: JUSTICE, 2022. 154p.

By Ashley Nellis

Louisiana’s share of people serving life without parole (LWOP) ranks highest per capita nationally and in the world. More than 4,000 Louisianans are serving sentences of life without the possibility of parole, amounting to 15% of this state’s prison population. Between 1995 and 2020, the state added an average of 110 people each year to its total count of life-sentenced individuals.  

A major driver behind the large share of people serving LWOP is the state’s automatic imposition of this sentence after conviction for second degree murder, making it one of only two states to impose LWOP in such instances. Louisiana’s second degree murder statute includes felony murder and drug induced homicide offenses; these cases often include instances where the charged individual was not the direct perpetrator of the killing, nor intended to commit it, though they participated in an underlying felony related to the victim’s death. It is important to note that felony murder laws such as that in Louisiana are not associated with a significant reduction in felonies nor have they lowered the number of felonies that become deadly. These crime types are infrequently subject to LWOP sentences elsewhere, much less mandatorily imposed. But in Louisiana, LWOP in response to second degree murder is both authorized and mandatory.  

Washington, DC: The Sentencing Project, 2024. 3p.  

By Olivia K. Ha , Evan C. McCuish, Martin A. Andresen, & Raymond R. Corrado

To examine individual perceptions of the consequences of crime, the role of criminogenic models, and whether rational choice and criminal social capital are informative of desistance during emerging adulthood. Data from the Incarcerated Serious and Violent Young Offender Study were used to examine the relationship between different aspects of rational choice theories of desistance, criminogenic environment, and offending trajectories measured between ages 12 and 30, calculated using semi-parametric group-based modeling. Offending trajectories were then modeled using multinomial logistic regression. Trajectory analyses identified three desistance trajectories and three non-desistance trajectories. The strongest predictors of desistance trajectories included variables that relate to rational choices that considered the consequences of crime. Rational choice and life course perspectives on desistance as complementary, with sources of informal social control operating in a manner that, along with other factors, helps structure an individual’s consideration of, and importance placed on, the consequences of crime

Journal of Developmental and Life-Course Criminology  2019,

By Aimee Brinn, John Preston, Rosina Costello, Tyler Opoku, Emily Sampson, Ian Elliott and Annie Sorbie

The Thinking Skills Programme (TSP) is an accredited offending behaviour programme designed and delivered by His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS). TSP is suitable for adult men and women assessed to be at medium and above risk of reoffending. TSP is the highest volume accredited programme delivered in custody.

The TSP is designed to reduce general reoffending by supporting improvements in four ways:

• 1. Developing thinking skills (such as problem solving, flexible thinking, consequential thinking, critical reasoning)

• 2. Applying these skills to managing personal risk factors

• 3. Applying thinking skills to developing personally relevant protective factors

• 4. Applying thinking skills to setting pro-social goals that support relapse prevention.

The programme format comprises 19 sessions (15 group sessions and 4 individual sessions, resulting in around 38 hours of contact time (dose).

The Evaluation

The aim of this evaluation is to assess the impact of TSP delivered in prison on proven general reoffending within a two-year follow-up period.

The analysis involved a treatment group of 20,293 adults (18,555 males, 1,738 females) who participated in the TSP programme between 2010 and 2019 and this was compared to a matched comparison group of 375,647 adults (345,084 males, 30,563 females) who did not participate in the programme. Propensity score matching (PSM) was used to ensure comparable treatment and comparison groups. The evaluation used the largest number of PSM matching variables for a HMPPS accredited programme evaluation to date.

The evaluation also has a large sample size which means it is likely to be representative of the population of TSP participants. A larger sample generates more precise results and increases the power of statistical testing. This increases the likelihood of finding a statistically significant finding (i.e., not due to chance) even if the difference between the treatment group and the matched comparison group is small. All adults in this study were released from prison between 2010 and 2020.

The impact of TSP was evaluated against three proven general reoffending metrics over a two-year follow up period:

• 1. Binary measure of reoffending (reoffending rate) – did they re-offend?

• 2. Frequency of re-offences committed – How many re-offences over the two-year period?

• 3. Time to first re-offence

Males and females were analysed separately due to the known differences in reoffending behaviour. Headline results include all participants in the programme, separated by gender. Analyses were conducted to investigate the potentially differential effect of TSP participation on distinct subgroups and to provide information on how differences in TSP delivery may impact on its effectiveness. It was not always possible to conduct sub-analyses due to small sample sizes.

Four key sub-analyses (more details are in ‘Explanation of sub-analyses’) were identified as potentially important moderators of TSP effectiveness:

• Suitability for TSP (ideally suitable and not ideally suitable)

• Completion of TSP (completed and not completed)

• Programme integrity using the HMPPS 2016-2019 Interventions Integrity Framework (broadly maintained and compromised)

• Risk of reoffending prior to TSP (Offender Group Reconviction Score (OGRS): low, medium, or high risk of reoffending).

Additional sub-analyses were conducted to provide further context and explanation of results included:

• Index offence group (acquisitive offences, sexual offences, and OVP (OASys Violence Predictor) offences – based on grouping of Home Office offence codes)

• Exclusivity of TSP (participation in TSP only and in one or more other accredited programmes)

• Ethnic group (‘Asian and Asian British’, ‘Black, Black British, Caribbean, and African’, ‘mixed and multiple ethnic groups’, and ‘White’, as per Office for National Statistics aggregate categories)

• Learning Disabilities and Challenges (LDC) (more likely to present with characteristics associated with LDC and less likely to present with characteristics associated with LDC)

• Age (18-25, 26-30, 31-49 and 50+)

London: Ministry of Justice, 2023. 92p.

By: Seri Irazola; Jennifer Bronson; Laura M. Maruschak

This report describes the results of a BJS study that assessed the feasibility of collecting data on maternal health and pregnancy outcomes from prisons and jails. It examined the availability and quality of data, the respondent burden, and the challenges of collecting data on the health and health care of pregnant women in custody at the federal, state, local, and tribal levels. BJS will use the findings of this study to help determine the best strategies for implementing national data collections in correctional settings. The study was undertaken in response to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations Report 116-455.

Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2024. 14p.

By Kelly Lyn Mitchell and Ebony Ruhland

Since 2019, Ramsey County Community Corrections (RCCC) and the Robina Institute of Criminal Law and Criminal Justice have collaborated on the Reducing Revocations Challenge, a CUNY Institute for State and Local Governance national initiative supported by Arnold Ventures that is dedicated to understanding the drivers of probation revocations and identifying ways to reduce them when appropriate. This study investigated the underlying causes of failure to maintain contact violations by interviewing individuals on probation in Ramsey County, Minnesota. A significant finding from our research is that "failure to maintain contact" with probation officers, often called "absconding" in other jurisdictions, is a prevalent violation, accounting for 29% of probation violations and 23% of revocations. Additionally, this study sought to understand how people on probation experienced being apprehended on a warrant, the issuance of which was reported to be a frequent response for failure to maintain contact violations. On the surface, the reasons for failure to maintain contact seemed straightforward. However, individual stories revealed much more complex situations, including struggles with substance abuse, lack of basic needs, and missteps by the probation department. This study also revealed several potential areas for improvement that could reduce failure to maintain contact violations in the future, such as assessing and addressing basic needs to increase compliance and reestablishing communication with individuals who are unresponsive but not necessarily hiding.

Minneapolis: Robina Institute of Criminal Law and Criminal Justice, University of Minnesota, 2023. 38p.

By  HM Inspectorate of Probation (UK)

A thematic inspection led by HM Inspectorate of Probation investigated the effectiveness of the arrangements to support Senior Probation Officers (SPOs) working in sentence management and in court teams. The report also focuses on management oversight, the processes taken by SPOs to make sure that probation work is undertaken to the required standard. The Probation Service lacks a comprehensive strategy for delivering effective management oversight. The inspection found the management oversight frameworks that have been implemented are used inconsistently by probation staff. Only 39 per cent of SPOs believed the current policies relating to management oversight meet the needs of the probation caseload. This inspection found: The current management structure and arrangements for the delivery of sentence management do not enable effective management oversight. A significant amount of time is currently being spent by SPOs on tasks unrelated to service delivery. Sixty-two per cent of SPOs said they had dealt with issues such as broken toilets or damaged windows within the last month. Staff in Wales have responded positively to the introduction of a new structure which has resulted in a less frenetic working culture. Morning check-in meetings and protected hours for probation practitioners to consult with SPOs have reduced anxiety levels, fostering a more considered approach to decision-making. An accompanying effective practice guide has been produced alongside this report, highlighting the good practice observed during this inspection. This report makes six recommendations, including to design and implement a comprehensive induction and development programme for all SPOs and to review business support functions in relation to facilities management and human resources.

Manchester, UK: The Inspectorate, 2024. 36p.

By Connie Utada, Rebecca Smith,  April Rodriguez

Adults on probation—supervision imposed by the court generally in lieu of incarceration—are more than twice as likely to have a serious or moderate mental illness as those in the general public, according to analysis of federal data from 2015 to 2019 by The Pew Charitable Trusts. This translates into over 830,000 adults with a mental illness who are on probation at any given time each year, or almost a quarter of all those on probation. Most of these individuals also have a co-occurring substance use disorder, with the rate of adults on probation with both a mental illness and substance abuse disorder over five times that of adults in the public. A recent survey of probation agencies nationwide conducted by researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) in partnership with Pew and the American Probation and Parole Association indicated that although agencies were aware that 20% to 25% of people under their supervision had mental health issues, most agencies did not have specialized mental health approaches and provided their officers with limited training related to mental health. Some officers who were interviewed said that they lacked the tools needed to successfully supervise people with a mental illness on probation, and that many people with a mental illness are placed on probation because other alternatives that don’t involve the justice system—such as diversion to treatment—aren’t being used or aren’t available.1 This lack of resources may be contributing to poorer criminal justice outcomes for people with a mental illness who are on probation, such as an increased likelihood of being arrested or going to prison. Some of the research’s key findings: People with a mental illness are more likely to be on probation than those without, and this disparity was even more pronounced for women and those with a co-occurring substance use disorder. Analysis of data from 2015 to 2019 showed that: Almost 3.5% of adults with a mental illness were on probation annually, compared with 1.7% of all adults. Among adults with co-occurring disorders, 8.5% were on probation annually. Women with a mental illness on probation were overrepresented relative to men. While 21% of all people on probation had a mental illness, the share of women on probation with a mental illness (31%) was almost twice that of men (16%). Many people on probation with a mental illness have more criminal justice contacts than those on probation without a mental illness. Adults with a mental illness who reported being on probation at some point during the year were more likely to be arrested during that year than those without a mental illness. ° Individuals with a mental illness who were on probation were more likely to go to prison for a new offense or for violating probation terms than those without a mental illness. Among people who were sent to prison from probation, those with a mental illness reported being arrested more often, going to prison more often, and being on probation more times than those without a mental illness. Many probation agencies lack the tools to support officers in supervising people with a mental illness, such as specialized approaches, staff training, and flexibility in setting supervision conditions. Among all responding agencies, 41% indicated they had a specialized mental health approach; among rural agencies, this dropped to 26%. 

North Carolina: Pew Charitable Trusts, 2024, 28p.

By David H. Cloud, Ilana R. Garcia-Grossman,  Andrea Armstrong, and Brie Williams

Mass incarceration is a socio-structural driver of profound health inequalities in the United States. The political and economic forces underpinning mass incarceration are deeply rooted in centuries of the enslavement of people of African descent and the genocide and displacement of Indigenous people and is inextricably connected to labor exploitation, racial discrimination, the criminalization of immigration, and behavioral health problems such as mental illness and substance use disorders. This article focuses on major public health crises and advances in state and federal prisons and discusses a range of practical strategies for health scholars, practitioners, and activists to promote the health and dignity of incarcerated people. It begins by summarizing the historical and sociostructural factors that have led to mass incarceration in the United States. It then describes the ways in which prison conditions create or worsen chronic, communicable, and behavioral health conditions, while highlighting priority areas for public health research and intervention to improve the health of incarcerated people, including decarceral solutions that can profoundly minimize—and perhaps one day help abolish—the use of prisons.   

United States, Annual Review Public Health. 2023, 29pg