Developing an Alternative Juvenile Programming Effort to Reduce Detention Overreliance

The assumption underlying juvenile detention alternatives is that youth on probation receiving programming or treatment are less likely to recidivate, whereas youth in detention will be more likely to recidivate. Under a coordinated justice reform effort, a juvenile justice court system serving two southeastern counties in Washington state developed a program (the FAST program) for probation violators that offered 2 sessions of accountability skill development to address targeted criminogenic needs in lieu of a formalized hearing and a subsequent stay in detention. The goal of the FAST program for participating youth was to reduce future probation violations and detention stays. This paper presents an evaluation of the FAST program using propensity score modeling of 434 juvenile probation violators. A comparison of matched groups shows the program does not reduce recidivism or future probation violations among participants, though it does produce the same result as those who received detention. Our explanation makes the case for increasing the dosage (number of sessions) of violator programs, which may be what is necessary to provide a more effective alternative to detention

Probation Officer Roles: A Statutory Analysis

There are a limited number of studies that explore the legally prescribed roles of probation officers. To address this, the current study employed a statutory analysis to examine how probation officer roles have changed over the past 30 years, identifying which tasks and roles are statutorily mandated for probation officers. Findings indicate that there is an emergence of a case manager approach in the legally prescribed roles for probation officers in many states, even though law enforcement-oriented tasks are slightly more prescribed by law than rehabilitation-oriented tasks

What Legally Prescribed Functions Tell Us: Role Differences Between Adult and Juvenile Probation Officers

The authors\u27 current study, which is built on prior attempts to explore legally prescribed probation functions across 50 states and the District of Columbia, examines the statutorily prescribed duties of adult and juvenile probation officers in the past 10 years. Analyses of role shifts and the complementarities and differences that exist in the statutes are also explored

UNDERSTANDING THE OPERATIONAL DYNAMICS OF DRUG COURTS

Drug courts seek to provide a coordinated and comprehensive approach to addressing the complex intersection of defendant addiction and crime that plagues the court system. Under the layers of activity and services that occurs in a drug court model exists a team that is charged with carrying out the goals and objectives of the designed program. This program should represent, in most courtrooms, a drastic departure from business as usual. History has shown, however, that proper implementation and maintenance of criminal justice reform and program efforts over time is difficult, and mission creep or program drift is not uncommon.This research analyzes the ability of drug court teams to follow recommended operational standards and explores whether drug courts are able to reach a strong state of collaboration. In addition, this research examines philosophical and ideological program change over time to assess if drug courts have drifted away from the balanced approach that should be applied within the model.This study found that survey respondents report strong adherence to the recommended drug court components and strategies, although juvenile drug court team members are embracing components built for adult drug courts. Training was significantly correlated across many scales and revealed that as training increases for team members, so to does perceptions of model adherence. As training increases, so to does perceptions of personal and system wide benefits associated with drug court operations. Findings also reveal that prosecutors and probation officers express less overall systems and personal benefit with participation on the team and within the drug court. In terms of assessing program drift, those team members that have received varied types of training perceive more drift and mission creep of the program over time. These findings offer important new insights into the inner working of the drug court model. Policy implications and recommendations for standardization are discussed

Evaluation of Washington State Department of Corrections (WADOC) Swift and Certain (SAC) Policy Process, Outcome and Cost-Benefit Evaluation

In 2012, the Washington State Department of Corrections (WADOC) embarked on an ambitious effort to restructure their community supervision model. These changes were driven by the passage of Senate Bill 6204, which created substantial operating changes to the Community Corrections Division (CCD) of the WADOC, including matching the level of supervision to offender’s risk level, utilizing evidence-based treatment and implementing swift and certain (yet moderate) jail sanctions for community supervision violations (Washington State Department of Corrections 2008; 2014). The Swift and Certain (SAC) policy was implemented in May of 2012, with the intent of expanding the HOPE model to a much broader community-based criminal justice population. Primarily, SAC was established to reduce confinement time for sanctions following a violation of supervision conditions. While maintaining a substantial focus on public safety, the Washington SAC program also sought to reduce correctional costs associated with short-term confinement for violation sanctioning. Through support by the Laura and John Arnold Foundation (LJAF), researchers at Washington State University (WSU) completed a multi-phase project to examine the implementation process and provide an outcome and cost-benefit evaluation of SAC

Evidence-Based or Just Promising? Lessons Learned in Taking Inventory of State Correctional Programming

As policy makers require more detail justifying rehabilitation expenditures, officials must take inventory on available programming and extant evidence. Unfortunately, little research can be drawn from to aid contextualizing and guiding this process. Using one state example, we report a legislative proviso which sought to investigate current and future use of correctional services. Through the lens of Risk-Needs-Responsivity, this article describes packaging research into digestible ways for policy discussions, and concludes with policy implications and guiding principles for other jurisdictions

Assessing the current state of juvenile probation practice: A statutory analysis

The 2002 Desktop Guide to Good Juvenile Probation Practice indicated that a state\u27s juvenile justice system should reflect a “balanced and restorative justice” (BARJ) model. Over a decade has passed since this publication, yet little is known about whether juvenile probation followed the BARJ. This study employed a statutory analysis to examine the differences between the legally prescribed roles of juvenile probation officers and the BARJ model across 50 states and the District of Columbia. Results indicated that even with significant reforms and statutory changes overtime, juvenile probation practices still fall short of meeting the basic tenets of restorative justice