Leveraging Technology to Enhance Community Supervision: Identifying Needs to Address Current and Emerging Concerns

Abstract

RESULTS• Automated tools are needed to quickly identify the most important criminogenic risks or needs to target for each case.• Technology should be leveraged to identify prosocial behaviors, deliver positive reinforcement, and support incentive programs for offenders.• Technology is needed to support more-effective officer training, assess whether training is implemented with fidelity, and facilitate timely feedback to the officer.• Research is needed to evaluate the impact of a more mobile workforce on outcomes; best practices are needed to guide agencies as they implement mobility strategies.• Evaluations of technology-based approaches to supervising lower-risk offenders are needed.• Modern methods of communicating with offenders (e.g., text, chat, and social media) should be evaluated for effectiveness.• Research is needed to guide more-effective implementation of location-monitoring technologies.• Research is needed to determine the predictive value of offender data (e.g., movement patterns) on recidivism.• Analytic and visualization tools should be leveraged to convert voluminous data sets into actionable intelligence.• Research is needed on the effectiveness of automated reminder strategies to reduce failure to appear violations.

Forensic e-mental health: Review, research priorities, and policy directions.

“…Technology, which can be programmed to vary the level of supervision and intervention intensity and frequency, is an opportunity to match an offender’s specific needs to their appropriate level of supervisory and clinical contact. A recent National Institute of Justice collaboration between the RAND Corporation and the University of Denver focused specifically on how stakeholders can use technology to improve community supervision (Russo et al, 2019). Participants identified benefits for individuals under supervision (electronic “check-ins,” automated appearance reminders, positive reinforcement for prosocial behavior), as well as benefits for supervisors themselves (automated reminders for appearance dates and workloads, interactive resources that prompt officers about specific issues to address with offenders).…”

COVID-19's Impact on Probation Professionals’ Views About Their Roles and the Future of Probation

“…One change that occurred across community supervision agencies was the increased reliance on technology to conduct virtual visits, treatment sessions, and other face-to-face programming. The use of technology in community corrections has expanded in recent years, as a response to increased caseload sizes with fewer resources ( Russo et al, 2019 ). In their report on an expert workshop with community corrections stakeholders, Russo et al (2019) found that participants expressed a common need to leverage technology to both train and support officers in their job duties.…”

“…The use of technology in community corrections has expanded in recent years, as a response to increased caseload sizes with fewer resources ( Russo et al, 2019 ). In their report on an expert workshop with community corrections stakeholders, Russo et al (2019) found that participants expressed a common need to leverage technology to both train and support officers in their job duties. Most research on community corrections’ use of technology has focused on the use of risk assessments, electronic monitoring, and less frequently, automated reporting such as kiosk supervision.…”

“…In a workshop of correctional administrators and academics, participants identified key challenges related to the use of technology in community supervision and the need to address these challenges. Russo et al (2019) identified four areas where community supervisions could better leverage the use of technology to improve supervision outcomes including managing human resources (e.g., training officers more effectively), facilitating positive behavioral change (e.g., delivering evidence-based interventions using automated tools), increasing accountability (e.g., the use of electronic monitoring), and improving operational effectiveness (e.g., victim notification, the use of modern communication tools such as text). This report highlights the importance of community supervision to embrace new technological innovations, something agencies were forced to implement in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.…”