The title of this post is the title of this lengthy new report produced by The Pew Charitable Trusts Public Safety Performance Project. Here are excerpts from the report's "Overview":
Since 1980, the nation’s community supervision population has ballooned by almost 240 percent. As of 2016, 1 in 55 U.S. adults (nearly 4.5 million people) are on probation or parole, more than twice the number incarcerated in state and federal prisons and local jails. Historically, probation and parole were intended to provide a less punitive, more constructive alternative to incarceration, but a growing body of evidence suggests that a frequent emphasis on surveillance and monitoring of people under supervision rather than on promoting their success, along with the resource demands of ever-larger caseloads, has transformed community supervision into a primary driver of incarceration. This shift has produced an array of troubling consequences, not only for individuals on probation and parole but for taxpayers and communities as well.
In recent years, a growing body of evidence on what works in community supervision has revealed a set of key challenges that undermine the system’s effectiveness and merit attention from policymakers:
• Community supervision is a leading driver of incarceration....
• Excessive rules can present barriers to successful completion of supervision....
• Agencies often inappropriately supervise low-risk individuals....
• Overextended supervision officers have less time to devote to high-risk, high-need individuals....
• Many people with substance use or mental health disorders do not receive treatment....
To address these problems, some supervision agencies have begun to embrace evidence-based practices that have been shown to improve outcomes and reduce recidivism. These include the use of research-based assessment tools to identify an individual’s level of risk for reoffending, graduated sanctions, such as increased reporting or short-term incarceration, to respond to violations of supervision rules, and incentives to encourage rule compliance. As a result of these and other policy changes, 37 states have experienced simultaneous reductions in crime and community supervision rates.
Although those results are encouraging, states and agencies need time to analyze their systems and enact reforms on a much larger scale to ensure that probation and parole function more effectively. To help states meet this challenge, The Pew Charitable Trusts, in partnership with Arnold Ventures, established the Advisory Council on Community Supervision to develop a policy framework for state lawmakers, court officers, and community corrections personnel. The council featured a diverse group of representatives from probation and parole agencies, the courts, law enforcement, affected communities, the behavioral health field, and academia. Drawing on its members’ extensive experience and knowledge, the council agreed on three broad goals for the next generation of community supervision: better outcomes for people on supervision, their families, and communities; a smaller system with fewer people on supervision; and less use of incarceration as a sanction for supervision violations, particularly breaches of the rules.
With those goals in mind, the council developed a menu of policies that state decision-makers and supervision administrators can use to reshape community supervision. Arnold Ventures supported the Robina Institute of Criminal Law and Criminal Justice at the University of Minnesota to examine the research underlying the policies and practices identified by the council, and where such an evidence base exists, it is summarized and cited in this framework. The recommendations are arranged according to seven broad objectives:
• Enact alternatives to arrest, incarceration, and supervision....
• Implement evidence-based policies centered on risks and needs....
• Adopt shorter supervision sentences and focus on goals and incentives....
• Establish effective and appropriate supervision conditions....
• Develop individualized conditions for payment of legal financial obligations....
• Reduce use of and pathways to incarceration....
• Support community supervision agencies....
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