I am a member of the Large Jail Network forum, which is restricted to members, almost all of whom are practitioners, and the few others that post or respond appear to be academics working criminal justice. It is very valuable and I try to read all the posts, and if I see a topic come up that we are involved in and our "take" hasn't already been addressed, I respond to it.
I am also a member of the Community Corrections Form, which is obviously available to the public. Between yesterday afternoon and a few minutes ago (it is 11:45 AM in Orlando) I received 20 e-mails, of which 17 were a conversation between someone considering employment in Probation and Parole in Missouri and someone working in that department. While I think that is valuable, I don't think it is very interesting to most of the practitioners out there.
Is there a private form for Community Corrections, like the LJN forum? If not, I think there should be. I am going to un-subscribe to the public Community Corrections forum, because the overwhelming majority of the postings seem to be from people looking for work, and I don't have the time to look through 20 or more message daily, to see if there is anything meaningful for the field stuck in there amongst all the job seekers.
Just a suggestion, but the private LJN forum really seems to be much, much more valuable.
Don Bjoring, Professional Services Manager, Orange County Corrections Department, Orlando, FL.