America’s prisons are becoming increasingly overcrowded, with many authorities seeking to shift the supervision of offenders into the community as a result. In new research, Jordan M. Hyatt & Geoffrey C. Barnes investigate the use of intensive supervision for the most serious offenders. In a study of more than 800 high risk probationers, they find that those who were closely supervised were just as likely to reoffend as those who were not, and in a similar time frame. They also find that closer supervision is linked with higher rates of absconding, incarceration and probation violations

Barnes, Geoffrey

Hyatt, Jordan

LSE Research Online

blogs.lse.ac.ukhttp://blogs.lse.ac.uk/usappblog/2015/01/12/intensive-community-supervision-for-high-risk-offenders-does-little-to-reduce-crime/Intensive community supervision for high-risk offenders doeslittle to reduce crimeAmerica’s prisons are becoming increasingly overcrowded, with many authorities seeking to shiftthe supervision of offenders into the community as a result. In new research, Jordan M. Hyatt &Geoffrey C. Barnes investigate the use of intensive supervision for the most serious offenders. Ina study of more than 800 high risk probationers, they find that those who were closely supervisedwere just as likely to reoffend as those who were not, and in a similar time frame. They also findthat closer supervision is linked with higher rates of absconding, incarceration and probationviolations.Prison overcrowding is an increasingly vexing problem in the United States.  One solution hasbeen to shift the supervision of more offenders, through a variety of mechanisms, away fromprisons and into the community.  This has contributed to the creation of a large probation andparole population.  When more serious offenders are supervised within the community, thenatural and most common policy response has been to increase the intensity of their supervision.Intensive supervisory probation (ISP) can take many forms.  The goal is simply control:  to provideas much oversight of the probationers as is possible within the community.  Protocols of this nature often requirefrequent meetings with a probation officer, regular drug testing, police or probation officers visits to homes andcontacts with family members and employers.  Prior studies of ISP have not been supportive of the practice, butthe policy persists in many jurisdictions.High-risk offenders may pose a danger to the community and it is important that the effects of communitysupervision policies on recidivism be understood.  Our research shows that, despite exhausting limited resources,this strategy has little appreciable impact on crime and results in increases in undesirable behaviors, includingfailures to comply with the rules of probation, increases in court hearings and, eventually, jail time.In Philadelphia, researchers from the Jerry Lee Center of Criminology (JLC) at the University of Pennsylvania,collaborating with Philadelphia’s Adult Probation and Parole Department (APPD), have worked to understand theimpact of supervision intensity on recidivism.  Since 2009, APPD has used a statistical risk forecasting model toassess all of their probationers.  Predictions are made using a type of machine learning procedure known as“random forests.” This has allowed for the power of the large amount of data collected by the court system andprobation department to be employed in making accurate risk forecasts.  Probationers are supervised in keepingwith this assessment: high-risk offenders receive more supervision and low-risk offenders receive less.An earlier study by the collaboration found that, for non-serious offenders, decreasing the frequency of reporting toonly twice a year and increasing the number of offenders assigned to each officer to almost 400 did not have anappreciable impact on crime.  However, this policy preserved significant resources and allows the agency to focuson the individuals most likely to commit a serious crime and to harm others in the community.Beginning in 2010, the collaboration conducted a randomized controlled trial (RCT) designed to isolate the impactof ISP on high-risk offenders.  Common in medicine, randomized trials allow for the identification of cause-and-effect relationships and are one of the strongest forms of evidence available in the social sciences.For this study, 832 high-risk, male probationers were randomly assigned into two groups: 447 individuals receivedISP and 385 individuals were supervised under a much less restrictive protocol.   With the exception of the type ofsupervision they were to receive, the groups were statistically identical.  All offenders were supervised in theirassigned manner for at least 12 months.  During that period, data were gathered on their arrests, compliance withthe rules of community supervision, drug use and if they were reincarcerated in the local jail system.When comparing the recidivism rates of the two groups (Figure 1), it becomes clear that roughly equalpercentages of both the ISP group (40.5 percent) and the comparison group (41.6 percent) were charged with anew offense within a year. This remains the case even when these offenses are broken down by type, includingviolent, serious, non-violent, property, and drug offenses.  The same trend is evident is when counting the numberof new arrests of each type; ISP had little impact on new crimes.Figure 1 – Recidivism rates for Intensive supervisory probation and Control groupsSince ISP is a control and surveillance focused approach to supervision, it was thought that perhaps criminalactivity would have been detected earlier. However, there were no significant differences in how long probationersremained on supervision before offending.  Figure 2 shows the “time to failure,” that is how many days elapsedbefore an individual in the experiment was arrested for the first time.  The fact that the two lines are almostidentical illustrates that there was no meaningful difference between the groups.  Similar analyses, conducted foreach specific type of crime, also showed no difference.Figure 2 – Days elapsed before individual in Intensive supervisory probation and Control groups’ firstarrestISP did have an effect on other types of offender conduct, which is clear when examining additional measures ofbehavior.   Within one year, for example, 11.2 percent more of the ISP group had absconded, that is failed toreport to their officer for long enough that a warrant was issued for their arrest, than in the comparison group.  12.3percent more of the ISP group was in custody, at least once, in the Philadelphia County Prison System.  ISPoffenders were also more likely to return to court for a violation hearing, in front of a judge, as a result of theirfailure to comply with the conditions of supervision.  All of these differences are statistically significant.  We cantherefore conclude that elements of the ISP protocol were responsible for these undesirable outcomes.Ultimately, the efforts dedicated to increasing the intensity of supervision may be better allocated elsewhere,including treatment, especially for agencies operating under significant resource constraints.   Supervisionfocused on the integration of treatment and control-focused characteristics produces an opportunity to utilizecommunity corrections as a mechanism to reduce offending .  If nothing else, the increased contacts requiredunder ISP create the opportunity to deliver evidence-based, violence-prevention programming.  There are severaloptions available in community corrections, though cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) remains one of the mostpromising approaches being explored by the research collaboration.Especially in light of growth in community corrections, agencies and policymakers should consider the costs, inboth expended resources and missed opportunities, of how supervision is used.  ISP may alleviate politicalpressures to do something with high-risk populations, but, used alone, it is unlikely to reduce crime.This article is based on the paper ‘An Experimental Evaluation of the Impact of Intensive Supervision on theRecidivism of High-Risk Probationers’, in Crime & Delinquency. Featured image credit: Boyce Duprey (Flickr, CC-BY-NC-SA-2.0)Please read our comments policy before commenting.            Note:  This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of U.S.App– American Politics and Policy, norof the London School of Economics.Shortened URL for this post: http://bit.ly/1xU3y8S _________________________________ About the authorsJordan M. Hyatt – University of PennsylvaniaJordan Hyatt is currently the Senior Research Associate at the Jerry Lee Center of Criminology atthe University of Pennsylvania, and also works with the Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencingand the Uniform Law Commission. His current research focuses on program evaluation in reentryand corrections, the impact of cognitive behavioral therapy on high-risk probationers and onintegrating actuarial risk-assessments into sentencing decisions.Geoffrey C. Barnes – University of PennsylvaniaGeoffrey C. Barnes is a Research Assistant Professor of Criminology at the University ofPennsylvania’s Department of Criminology. He works primarily on field experiments testing theeffects of programs and policies on crime and justice outcomes. He has more than two decadesof experience working with large and complex data systems, including those of different criminaljustice agencies in Australia, England, and the United States.CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 2014 LSE USAPP

Intensive community supervision for high-risk offenders does little to reduce crime

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