Four main elements of Person-Centered Supervision

The first element: Time

1. Forecasting

With the nation’s highest caseloads, DCS must analyze statistical trends to determine where to focus its limited resources. Following the Risk-Need-Responsivity (RNR) framework, the first step of productive supervision entails matching people’s intervention intensity with their likelihood of reoffending (i.e., the Risk principle).

We are advancing knowledge in this area in two ways:

2. Incentives

Reoffending is most likely during the first 10-18 months of supervision, and long supervision terms fail to deliver better results. Additionally, incentives are more effective than sanctions at improving outcomes.

In fact, the most valued incentive among individuals is reduced supervision length. Two paths in which this occurs are Unsupervised Status and Early Termination.

The second element: Relationships

3. The Role of Stress in Officer-Supervisee Relationships: A Biosocial Approach to Reducing Recidivism

The quality of officer-supervisee relationships heavily influences the success of interventions. As such, it is critical to understand the factors that hinder these relationships, and officer stress is a prime candidate. To this end, we are conducting a series of projects examining the role of officer stress in building working alliances with supervisees and how the resulting relationships impact criminal justice outcomes. Two examples are:

4. Jail Impact Study

Incarceration, even for short periods, interferes with employment, disrupts treatment, and isolates people from their support systems. Further, a key ingredient in effective supervision services is a positive working relationship between officers and their clients, but an overreliance on jails hinders the relationship-building process.

For example, the Probation Options Management (POM) Act, an administrative process for officers to bypass courts and jails when resolving technical violations, is vastly underutilized across the state. Therefore, we are conducting a Jail Impact Study to inform strategies for reducing jail use without compromising public safety. We are in the first two stages of this research project. 

The third element: Dialogue

5. Joint Supervision

Where the risk principle tells us who to treat, the need principle tells us what to treat. Criminogenic needs are those factors in a person’s life directly related to recidivism. However, there is often a service gap for supervision agencies around two of the most prevalent criminogenic needs: antisocial associates and a lack of prosocial support.

Furthermore, an internal analysis revealed that people labeled with gang affiliation experience worse supervision outcomes than those without a gang label. For instance, only 9% of the DCS population is a known gang associate, but they comprise 18% of all revocations. 

Therefore, DCS is seeking support to implement and evaluate a pilot project that stands up a joint mentor/officer caseload directed toward providing strengths-based programming to gang-involved young adults with the objectives of reducing recidivism, increasing prosocial support, and building trusting relationships between officers and the persons they supervise. The joint supervision model combines the skills of formerly incarcerated peer mentors with those of specially trained DCS officers.

6. Men of Destiny

Within three years of their release from prison, two out of three people experience rearrests, and 39% are

re-incarcerated. For these reasons, many states have revitalized prison programming into Therapeutic Communities (TC). Incorporating elements like peer mentorship and social navigation, a few studies have found that TCs show promise in improving the success rates of people reintegrating into society.

Drawing on the lived experiences of its participants, DCS is part of a large-scale effort to study a Georgia correctional TC, the ‘Men of Destiny’ program. Findings will shed light on the nuanced needs of persons reentering our communities after incarceration and spark conversations on the importance of rehabilitative programming during confinement.

The fourth element: Intersections

7. Mental Health

Facing complex challenges (e.g., homelessness, addiction, and victimization), individuals with mental illnesses experience increased odds of supervision failure, such as rearrests and revocations. Unsurprisingly, assisting people with mental illness takes an emotional toll on officers, which affects their willingness or ability to deliver evidence-based supervision. Hence, we devote much attention to increasing our understanding of the intersection between community supervision and mental illness.

8. Addiction

A disproportionate number of supervisees are dealing with substance use issues, which is one of the primary criminogenic needs directly related to recidivism. Thus, DCS offers an array of direct services to help people with addiction. Two of these services are Day Reporting Centers and the Matrix Recovery Program.

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