The Monetary Benefits and Costs of Community Supervision

Abstract

In 2014, nearly 5 million people were supervised in the community on probation or parole; yet, little research evidence exists indicating whether supervision is a costeffective strategy to reduce recidivism. Using a meta-analytic framework, this article presents findings from the Washington State Institute for Public Policy (WSIPP) on the cost-effectiveness of four community supervision strategies including intensive supervision programs both with and without a focus on treatment, supervision with risk-need-responsivity training for officers, and swift, certain, and fair supervision policies to address violation behavior. Results from the systematic review of the rigorous research evidence indicates that three of the four supervision strategies are effective at reducing recidivism and produce long-term financial benefits that outweigh the costs with a high degree of certainty. The implications of these findings are discussed as well as suggestions for future research.

Economic Evaluation of the HOPE Demonstration Field Experiment

“…The current study has an RCT design, whereas the design of Hamilton et al. 's () study is quasi‐experimental and Drake's () is a meta‐analysis of studies of SCF for community supervision, including parole rather than probation alone. Because RCT and quasi‐experimental designs may yield different conclusions from the same data (Peikes, Moreno, and Orzol, 2009), it is possible that some of the differences in findings across the current study and these other studies is because of differences in design.…”

“…Additionally, as pointed out by Lattimore et al. () and Drake (), both the effectiveness of an experimental intervention and any attendant cost savings are reflective not only of the intervention but also of the “compared to what”—the control or comparison condition. The DFE was characterized by both small variations in HOPE implementation across the sites and significant variation in PAU (see Lattimore et al., ).…”

“…Unlike many other jurisdictions, for example, in Hawaii, judges were given discretion in how to respond to probation violations; the state comprises islands, which makes absconding across boundaries difficult; and in the Hawaii HOPE site, all probation officers were highly qualified in social work (Zajac et al, 2015). 3 Additionally, as pointed out by Lattimore et al (2016) and Drake (2018), both the effectiveness of an experimental intervention and any attendant cost savings are reflective not only of the intervention but also of the "compared to what"-the control or comparison condition. The DFE was characterized by both small variations in HOPE implementation across the sites and significant variation in PAU (see Lattimore et al, 2018).…”

“…These findings were consistent with findings from Delaware (O'Connell et al., ) . Recently, Drake () used a meta‐analytic approach to combine the results of 11 separate estimated effects of SCF and concluded SCF was associated with reduced recidivism ( p = .066).…”

Benefits and Costs of “Swift, Certain, and Fair” Supervision

“…() included tangible victimization costs, but the methodological approach and inputs reported make it difficult to disentangle the costs borne to victims versus to taxpayers. Last, Drake () included criminal justice system costs as well as victimization costs (tangible and intangible), and thus, she found SCF to produce net benefits that are four to eight times greater, per participant, compared with the findings of the other two studies. For benefit–cost analysis to have meaningful utility for policy makers, understanding what the bottom‐line estimate represents is crucial (Aos, ).…”