Need For Speed High Stakes (complete Edition)

[Ara Kistner]

Incarcerationhas long dominated the national conversation on criminal justice, because the U.S. prison population skyrocketed between the 1980s and late 2000s. Starting in 2007, policymakers seeking to protect public safety, improve accountability, and save taxpayer dollars initiated a wave of bipartisan reforms that has reduced the number of people behind bars in many states. Yet this movement has largely overlooked the largest part of the correctional system: community supervision.

Community corrections is marked by considerable growth and scale, disproportionate representation of men and people of color, and a majority of people who committed nonviolent offenses.

These findings demonstrate the need for greater scrutiny of the community corrections system by policymakers and the public. They also reinforce an emerging consensus among leading practitioners for a fundamental change in the vision and mission of supervision: from punishing failure to promoting success.

Administrative response: A sanction for noncompliance with supervision rules that is less punitive than long-term incarceration, such as a verbal or written warning, curfew restrictions, more frequent drug testing, and short-term incarceration.

Administrative supervision: A form of probation that typically requires little to no contact with a supervision officer but also permits a return to prison or jail if the person being supervised is not compliant.

Conditions of supervision: Rules that those under supervision must follow, such as abstaining from alcohol and illicit drugs, reporting to supervisory officers, abiding by a curfew, participating in treatment programs, and avoiding contact with people with felony records.

Graduated sanctions: A range of community-based penalties, such as increased reporting, community service, and short-term incarceration, administered in a manner that is swift, certain, and proportional to the violation.

At the end of 2016, more than4.5 million people were on probationor parole, accounting for two-thirdsof the total correctional population.More than 3.6 million of thoseindividuals were on probation, andthe remaining 875,000 were onparole.1

The community correctionspopulation peaked in 2007, andalthough it had declined 11 percentby 2016, it remained near its all-timehigh and was 239 percent largerthan it was in 1980.2 Althoughthe significant growth of theU.S. prison and jail populationsover the past half-century hasgarnered substantial public andpolicymaker attention, this similarrise in the number of people oncommunity supervision has beenlargely overlooked.

As probation and parole populationsgrew, so did the per capita rate ofcommunity supervision. Today, 1 in55 adults in the U.S., or 4.5 millionpeople, is subject to postconvictionsurveillance and court-ordered rules.That share is down 581,900 peoplefrom the 2007 peak of 1 in 45, but itstill represents nearly 2 percent ofAmerican adults.

In addition, the national ratemasks wide variation in howprobation and parole are usedacross states. The share of peopleon community supervision rangesfrom 1 in 18 in Georgia to 1 in 168in New Hampshire,5 and evenamong neighboring states withsimilar populations and politicaldemographics, rates can differsignificantly. For example, 1 in 33adults in Idaho is on supervisioncompared with just 1 in 134 in Utah.

The racial gap resembles that inincarceration: Black adults are about3.5 times as likely as whites to besupervised, and although African-Americans make up 13 percentof the U.S. adult population, theyaccount for 30 percent of thoseon probation or parole. In addition,although federal data do not indicatedisproportionate representation ofHispanics in community corrections,many states do not report ethnicitydata, so Hispanics under supervisionare undercounted.7

Imbalances also exist among femalesand males under supervision.Men are supervised at a rate about3.5 times that of women. However,the share of women under supervisionhas nearly doubled from 520,000 in1990 to more than 1 million at theend of 2016. As a result, womenaccounted for one-quarter of theprobation population and 1 in 8parolees by 2016.

At the end of 2016, 8 in 10probationers and two-thirds ofparolees had been sentencedfor nonviolent crimes. Drug andproperty crimes each accounted formore than a million of the people onparole or probation that year.8 For asense of scale, if individuals undersupervision for drug crimes andthose for property crimes each madeup a city, they would rank among the10 largest cities in the U.S.9

Unlike the prison population, whichconsists almost entirely of peopleconvicted of felonies, the communitysupervision population includespeople convicted of offenses rangingfrom the least serious misdemeanorsto the most severe violent offenses.At least 4 in 10 probationers arebeing supervised for a misdemeanoroffense; the ratio is probably higher,but the true figure is unknownbecause of a lack of data fromsome agencies that supervise onlymisdemeanants.10

About half of people who exitparole or probation complete theirsupervision terms successfully. Forthe other half, failure is commonand often leads to jail or prison.In 2016, 29 percent of the nearly2 million probation exits wereunsuccessful, and 12 percent(nearly a quarter of a millionpeople) resulted in incarceration.Of approximately 425,000 paroleexits, 30 percent were unsuccessfuland 27 percent led to incarceration.All told, nearly 350,000 supervisionfailures result in prison or jailterms annually.

Although 50-state data are notavailable, research has found thatprobation and parole revocationscontributed significantly to prisonadmissions in several states in2015.11Probation revocationsmade up 55 percent of all prisonadmissions in Georgia and61 percent in Rhode Island, whileparole revocations accounted for54 percent of all prison admissionsin Arkansas. In some states, theproportions were significantly lower,such as Massachusetts, whereprobation and parole revocationsaccounted for just 19 and 7 percentof admissions, respectively, andNebraska, where those figures were8 and 17 percent.

Some data also suggest that peopleon probation and parole contributedisproportionately to arrests.14 In 2009, 18 percent of felonydefendants in the 75 largest urbancounties were on supervision atthe time of their arrest. How manyarrests are for new crimes versusrule violations is unknown, butresearch suggests that many may bethe result of supervision practicesthat focus on catching mistakesthrough surveillance and monitoring,rather than on promoting success viarehabilitation and support.15 Moreresearch is needed to understandthese dynamics and develop policiesto prevent new crimes and reducerevocations for technical violations.

The large community correctionspopulation and diverse risks andneeds of people under supervisionhave made appropriately managingeach person increasingly challenging.A large body of research hasdemonstrated the practicality andimportance of classifying individualsbased on their risk of recidivism andtreatment needs and then prioritizingsupervision and intervention resourceson those most likely to benefit.16

For example, an evaluation ofhalfway house treatment programsin Ohio showed that, although theintervention effectively reducedrecidivism for those considered highrisk,it increased reoffending amonglow-risk participants.17 Researchhas consistently shown that oversupervisinglow-risk individuals cando more harm than good by disruptingsupportive elements of their lives,such as family, education, andemployment, and mixing them in withpeople who are higher-risk.18 On theother hand, prioritizing resources andattention for high-risk individuals andthose in need of treatment has beendemonstrated to yield the greatestreductions in reoffending.19

Nearly half of the communitycorrections population has asubstance use disorder, and ratesof substance use, misuse, anddependence are two to three timeshigher for people on probationand parole than for the generalpopulation.20

However, many people undersupervision who could benefit fromtreatment do not receive it becauseof strained budgets, limited optionsin the community, or other factors.21 Research has found that a largeshare of the illicit drug problem isdriven by a relatively small group offrequent users, many of whom areunder correctional supervision.22 So the failure to provide substanceuse treatment represents acritical missed opportunity toreduce drug consumption and itscosts to individuals, families, andcommunities.

Similarly, 37 states experienced drops in both community supervision and crime from 2007 to 2016.24 And some, such as Texas and SouthCarolina, cut their supervision and crime rates by 20 percent or more. As was the case with imprisonment, these declines often followedthe adoption of evidence-based sentencing and corrections reforms that aim to improve public safety while ensuring accountability andcontrolling taxpayer costs. Policymakers have pursued these goals by prioritizing scarce community corrections resources for higher-riskindividuals, investing in programs to reduce recidivism, and providing incentives for compliance with supervision rules.

The community corrections field has increasingly embraced these essential building blocks of an evidence-based system, and many jurisdictions have seen encouraging results. But bigger gains are possible and urgently needed, given the stakes for those being supervised, for crime victims, and for families and communities.

This analysis suggests that the system is struggling to carry out its mandate. Progress will necessitate more than gradual adoption of specific practices and programs; it will require that the system shrink substantially and embrace major changes in policy and mission. An emerging consensus among criminal justice professionals supports a series of strategic shifts away from the current mass, time-based, isolated, and enforcement-minded model to one that is:25

Striking the right balance between accountability for violations and new crimes, and incentives for compliance and progress can improve outcomes. Ultimately, a more effective community corrections system will require a culture change: Policymakers and stakeholders must view people on supervision as capable of change and deserving of support.

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