ISLG and Arnold Ventures Announce Second Phase of Probation Reform Initiative Driven by New Research
By Victoria Lawson, Research Project Director
Pathways to Success on Probation: Lessons Learned from the First Phase of the Reducing Revocations Challenge
While it’s commonly accepted that community supervision is a major driver of mass incarceration, little research has been done to understand the causes of probation revocations in their local contexts. As part of their work to fill this data gap, ISLG, in partnership with Arnold Ventures, is excited to announce both the launch of the second phase of the Reducing Revocations Challenge and the release of the research brief that informs it, Pathways to Success on Probation: Lessons Learned from the First Phase of the Reducing Revocations Challenge.
For the past two years, the first phase of the Challenge involved 10 jurisdictions from across the country working to implement an innovative research model that pairs probation agencies with a local research partner. These action research teams (ARTs) used multiple methods to dive into the specific policies and practices of their jurisdictions to determine and study the local drivers of violations and revocations, research that both uncovered new insights and reaffirmed existing knowledge. These first-phase findings and their policy and practice implications are discussed in the research brief. During this new second phase, five of these 10 jurisdictions will be funded to implement strategies informed by their research that aim to reduce revocations, increase equity in probation outcomes, and advance community safety and well-being.
The new insights highlighted in Pathways to Success on Probation include:
Technical violations are a significant issue in many sites despite the lesser implications for community safety compared to new crime violations. While some of these filings are punitive in nature, research across sites revealed that officers also issue technical violations for reasons that have nothing to do with wanting to end a client’s probation term.
While technical violations are prevalent, new crimes are more likely to end in revocation. This is often tied to the desire of probation officers, judges, and other system stakeholders to avoid risk and ensure community safety, even though new crime violations encompass a range of new criminal activities ranging from low-level misdemeanors to more serious felony offenses.
People on probation who are assessed as high risk are more likely to have a violation filed, even for less serious acts of noncompliance that may not compromise community safety and would have had less serious consequences for people assessed as low or medium risk.
Existing knowledge affirmed in the Cross-site Brief includes:
Probation officers play a key role in the success of people on probation, but the nature of their working relationships varies greatly.
Many people on probation have complicated needs, and probation does not always have the services and supports to address them.
Racial and ethnic disparities are prominent among both violations and revocations.
There is a complicated relationship between time on probation and the likelihood of success.
The five sites that will be funded to implement strategies grounded in these findings in the second phase of the Challenge are: Harris County, TX; Monroe County, IN; Pima County, AZ; Ramsey County, MN; and Santa Cruz County, CA. Over the next two years, the sites’ ARTs will operationalize their reform plans, put them into action, and monitor progress and impacts through performance metrics and other data feedback loops. Throughout these efforts, sites will engage in ongoing assessment of the strategies through a racial equity lens, with a particular emphasis on unintended consequences for Black, Indigenous, and people of color and impacts on racial and ethnic disparities.
To read more information about the Challenge and dive deeper into site-specific reports as well as read Pathways to Success on Probation, please visit https://islg.cuny.edu/case-study-reducing-revocations-challenge.