Adaptations to COVID-19 in Community Corrections Agencies across the United States

Abstract

Currently, there are more than 4.5 million Americans under some form of community supervision. Much of the experience of traditional community supervision relies on face-to-face interactions. Individuals on supervision often require treatment or services typically delivered in face-to-face settings. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has forced community corrections' agencies to quickly rethink how they do business, with limited existing research on how to adapt supervision protocols in the midst of a global pandemic. Using surveys of directors of community corrections' agencies across the United States, the goal of the current study was to examine how community corrections' agencies have adapted traditional supervision processes to address disease prevention and containment in addition to supporting client needs and community safety as a result of COVID-19. Changes implemented during the pandemic may have implications for the future landscape of community supervision. Understanding how and what agencies prioritize in a time of global crisis can provide a foundation for identifying sustainable changes as well as understanding future impacts on system and client-level outcomes.

Burnout in Spanish Security Forces during the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…One consequence of the COVID-19 health crisis has been the proliferation of studies related to clinical research to generate methods for the disease's treatment including the contextual and psychological effects derived from the pandemic. In this sense, we must determine the consequences of the pandemic on other levels [33][34][35][36], including the emotional and psychological levels.…”

An Imperfect Storm: Identifying the Root Causes of COVID-19 Outbreaks in the World’s Largest Corrections Systems

“…As we have documented in this review, the trend over the past two decades is for the largest prison systems to keep expanding, often without the resources needed to protect the health and safety of inmates and staff. We find that it is not crime that is driving this increase in the largest prison systems, which suggests that sentencing and correctional policies globally are driven by other factors, including systemic racism (Byrne et al, 2015;Heard, 2020;Tonry, 2016). These policies result in the overrepresentation of poor, marginalized, nonwhite populations in prisons globally; in our view, the data on minority overrepresentation in prisons globally cannot be glibly justified, either by catch phrases such as "you do the crime, you do the time," or by unsupported arguments that more prison equals less crime.…”

“…At the core of community supervision is face-to-face contact with probationers and parolees, but the engagement and supervision strategies place both officers and supervisees at risk. According to the results of a national survey of community corrections agencies, the agencies were much more likely to provide personal protective equipment (PPE) to supervision staff than to individuals on supervision, which is concerning from a public health perspective (Viglione et al, 2020). They were also less likely to drug test supervisees and to require community service.…”

“…The root causes of the COVID-19 crisis in prisons can and should be viewed through both a crime control and a public health lens. Governments have a responsibility to protect the public by enforcing laws and sanctioning convicted offenders in a manner that maximizes public protection, 14 without sacrificing fairness and equity (M. H. Tonry, 2016). Governments also have a responsibility to protect the health and safety of individuals in both the institutional and community corrections systems.…”

“…27. For an overview of sentencing research, see Byrne (2013), Nagin (2013), M. Tonry (2008), and Tonry (2016). 28.…”