The reentry court model was created to address the risks and needs of offenders returning to the community during the period immediately following release. While there is growing interest in reentry courts, research to date has been limited. This study utilized a quasi-experimental design, comparing reentry court participants with traditional…

Probation and parole professionals argue that supervision outcomes would improve if caseloads were reduced below commonly achieved standards. Criminal justice researchers are skeptical because random assignment and strong observation studies have failed to show that criminal recidivism falls with reductions in caseload sizes. One explanation is…

A cognitive-behaviorally based substance abuse treatment program was implemented within a community supervision setting. This program included a goals group that used a contingency management component and included the probation agent as a part of the treatment. In this article, the authors describe the contingency management component of the…

The series of Working Alliance Inventories remains the most extensively researched and utilized instruments to measure the working alliance. However, these instruments have not been normed and validated among individuals on probation or parole. Therefore, this study provides psychometric properties for a modified, offender version of the Working…

Since 2002, the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, in conjunction with Federal Districts around the country, has undergone a series of philosophical, policy, and funding changes that intend to move the system towards an outcome-based focus. This article describes the history, current status of the system's attempts to become evidence-based,…

Despite the widespread use of probation in the United States, little is known about how offenders perceive this sentence or the officers who provide their supervision. The present research measures and evaluates perceptions of the probation process, specifically probationers' perception of their probationer officer, and examines characteristics…

Evidence is accumulating that drug court programs appear effective in reducing the substance use and recidivism of drug-involved offenders. As there is no single drug court model, programs vary from site to site and the extent to which individual programs are fully implemented is not well documented. The extent to which drug court programs deliver…

While we know formal education is an important variable for reducing recidivism, there are few prison systems still offering college courses. We introduce the Inviting Convicts to College Program that deploys undergraduate student-teachers as instructors of college level courses inside prisons. The student-teachers are supervised by professors.…

Criminologists have explored the reentry experience of formerly incarcerated adults, documented the pressing challenges of reentry, the correlates of recidivism, and the causes of desistance. Given scholars' focus on reentry to explain what factors impact criminal outcome, this raises the interesting question of whether and how such factors shape…

This article reports on a study designed to examine the perceptions of house arrest (HA) and electronic monitoring (EM) among offenders who have recently experienced this criminal sentence. Data were gathered via a self-administered questionnaire and follow-up interviews with a sample of offenders. Our primary areas of interest were to assess (a)…

Community supervision has been an integral part of corrections since the establishment of probation more than 100 years ago. It has commonly been assumed that offenders benefit from community supervision much more than if they were incarcerated. However, empirical evidence in support of the effectiveness of community supervision in reducing…

Motivational interviewing (MI) has been recommended as a supervision style in probation. This project examined the effectiveness of an MI training curriculum on probation officer MI skill and subsequent probationer outcome. Twenty probation officers were randomized to receive MI training, or to a waiting list control, while an additional group of…

Three contemporary models of probation supervision can be differentiated, based on the extent to which they focus on protecting community safety (surveillance model), promoting offender rehabilitation (treatment model), or both (hybrid model). Hybrid models combine dual roles of controlling and caring for probationers. A quarter century ago,…

There is an emerging paradigm in probation and parole in the United States. That new outlook encompasses a realization that these forms of supervision of offenders must meet the challenges of an increasing number of parolees and probationers. Recidivism continues to be the primary outcome measure for probation, as it is for all corrections…

This study examines staff perceptions of juvenile intensive supervision program goals and frequency of offender violations. It identifies factors staff consider in pursuing revocation and alternatives they use to avert revocation. Staff prioritized rehabilitation behind other goals. Regardless of whether they considered probated or aftercare…