Community Corrections for Professionals : Parole

Validation of the Wisconsin Department of Corrections Risk Assessment Instrument

CC Pro — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 21:18:00 GMT

The use of risk assessment instruments to measure the probability of individuals under community supervision re-offending is standard operational procedure (SOP) for probation and parole agencies across the country. Across the different generations of instruments that have been employed, the basic question still remains: Does this instrument provide the necessary data to formulate proper levels of offender supervision based on risk, and assist in calculating staff workload and deployment.

The Wisconsin Department of Corrections has recently completed a validation of the risk assessment instrument they use. The study was prepared by the Council of State Governments Justice Center. With a sample of over 42,000 offenders under community supervision (probation and parole) between 2001 and 2002, data were examined using the outcome measures of: "(a) a new offense within three years of placement on community supervision; and (b) new violent offense within three years of placement on community supervision." to define recidivism.

Among the findings:

A high percentage of offenders were classified as high risk, which is counter to the goal of risk classification: to differentiate the population by risk and and allocate resources accordingly.
The main reason for the over-classification was the weight given to the assaultive offense factor.
Other factors, besides the weight given to the assaultive risk factor, may have also contributed to the over-classification issue.
The probation and parole population differed significantly on the distribution of the population on most risk factors.
Probationers and parolees classified at the same risk levels had different rates of re-offending with parolees having higher rates of re-offending for the same risk levels.
The Wisconsin Risk instrument (DOC 502) differentiated populations into groups with different rates of committing a new assaultive offense. However, most of the offenders classified at high risk of committing a new offense did not commit a new assaultive offense during the follow-up period.

Included is a Summary of Recommendations by the authors to increase the effectiveness of this instrument. While this study is specific to Wisconsin, it has implications for every agency that uses assessment instruments for assigning risk and resource allocation.

Standardizing Parole Violation Sanctions

CC Pro — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 17:04:00 GMT

The economic realities of many state budgets has prompted a renewed examination of how corrections systems do business. One of the areas of concern has been the number of costly and time-consuming parole violation hearings that often result in the re-incarceration of parolees (Table 6). Is there a methodology parole agencies can utilize to address parole violations and the accompanying sanctions in a fairer and more proportionate manner? In an attempt to answer this question, two states (California and Ohio) have employed standardized tools that provide a grid of graduated sanctions to assist in parole violation decision making. Standardizing Parole Violation Sanctions, a National Institute of Justice Journal report highlights both states and the possible implications the use of standardized tools may have on a national basis.

A full report on the impact of Ohio's Progressive Sanction Grid is available here. Information on California's Parole Violation Decision Making Instrument (PVDMI) may be found here.

Information and Statistics on State Parole Supervising Agencies

Sandy Schilling — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 16:33:00 GMT

The Bureau of Justice statistics has recently released Characteristics of State Parole Supervising Agencies, 2006. This report presents the midyear 2006 information and data collected from 52 state agencies that supervise an adult parole population of 660,959 and an adult probation population of 1,200,570.