NANCY BEATTY GREGOIRE, GUEST EDITOR
Chief, Program Administration Division
Office of Probation and Pretrial Services
The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts
THE INCREASED CALL to measure results at the national and local levels of government has resounded within the federal probation and pretrial services system. The leadership within the U.S. Courts’ probation and pretrial services system has been working on ways to measure outcomes, rather than measuring actions. We saw the need to reach a point where we could demonstrate with hard data the results of our efforts—our accomplishments, the benefits to society—rather than simply describing the services we provide.
While accepting the challenge of better measuring our results, we simultaneously renewed our commitment to using research to drive our national policies and practices. We’ve been reading and sharing research findings and have developed and revised many policy documents and training programs to support incorporating research-based findings into our daily work
In this special issue of Federal Probation, we’ve included articles that describe how the system at large has progressed in this regard, and how individual offices have undertaken various levels of change to move their offices forward. Change is taking place at varying levels and at varying paces throughout the system. The articles presented here will portray in words the efforts of the federal probation and pretrial services system to become a results-based system that supports behavior change in offenders and defendants as a means to protect the community.In the lead article, “Results-Based Management in Federal Probation and Pretrial Services,” John M. Hughes, the Assistant Director of the Office of Probation and Pretrial Services, describes the movement of the system in the past decade and the involvement of the various stakeholders in making such progress possible. This article lays the foundation and gives perspective for those that follow. First among these is Melissa Alexander and Scott VanBenschoten’s “The Evolution of Supervision in the Federal Probation System,” which details the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts’ efforts to provide additional funding and technical support to select probation and pretrial services offices to pilot test some research-based practices and techniques.
Janet T. Davidson, Richard Crawford, and Elizabeth Kerwood then outline the “Hawaii Model” of using Evidence-Based Practices (EBP) to reduce the likelihood that an offender will commit a new crime. The probation office in the district of Hawaii has been working for three years on developing a new model of post-conviction supervision. This article describes the comprehensive approach to move federal supervision of offenders from a compliance model, focused on responding to violations of supervision, to an outcome-based model for supervision that focuses on reducing future anti-social and/or offending behavior to affect long-term public safety. While the “Hawaii Model” incorporates the three components of adopting evidence-based principles, organizational development, and collaboration, the article provides more detail on the description and adoption of each of the eight evidence-based principles for effective interventions.Focusing on the importance of organizational change, Robert J. Askelson contributes “Organizational Change in the Heartland of Opportunity.” In this article Askelson looks to the past leadership of the federal probation office in the Northern District of Iowa as the foundation from which to build a new leadership style, shifting from a hierarchical control paradigm to one of empowering staff to become leaders in the organization, better able to implement and support the use of evidence-based principles.
The first of the eight principles described in the Hawaii Model, and one of the foundational principles of offender supervision, is the importance of accurately assessing the offender’s risk and needs. Scott VanBenschoten traces the historical use of risk assessment instruments in federal probation and discusses our plans to develop a national tool that would identify risk and needs, and would direct the actions of the probation officer through the case planning process. He also notes the current situation of several probation offices choosing off-the-shelf assessment instruments while awaiting the development and implementation of one instrument for use nationally.Several of the remaining articles describe more specific programs that have been developed or selected for implementation under the umbrella of research-based programs expected to reduce recidivism in post-conviction supervision populations.
Chris Hansen provides an historical perspective for cognitive behavioral interventions, recounting 1) the development of cognitive therapy beginning with Plato, 2) the development of behavioral therapy beginning with Pliny the Elder, and 3) the more recent blending of cognitive and behavioral therapies to form Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy, or CBT. Hansen then presents research findings on the use of CBT in corrections, followed by a description of each of the most common pre-packaged CBT programs for community corrections. Finally, Hansen discusses an innovative offender CBT journaling program that he and a few other chief probation officers helped to develop.
Michael McGrath accepts the great value of CBT programs, but also recognizes that certain rural communities, like many that his officers serve in North Dakota, don’t have the available community resources or ability to get offenders together for a group process. Approximately one half of the offenders on federal supervision in North Dakota are Native American. There are cultural and social dynamics in that population that may make it necessary to consider exploring alternate approaches to CBT programs. In “Making ‘What Works’ Work for Rural Districts,” McGrath outlines an innovative at-home cognitive life skills study course designed to follow the principles of CBT. The article describes the results of an evaluation conducted on 50 offenders who participated in this program. The author found a reduction in each of the identified criminal thinking pattern categories of the Texas Christian University Criminal Thinking Scale.Laura Knollenberg and Valerie A. Martin report on a process evaluation they conducted of the Western District of Michigan’s Accelerated Community Entry Program (ACE). This program is modeled after the reentry court structure and was developed to address the needs of high-risk offenders returning to Berrien County, Michigan after a term of incarceration. This article presents the findings of a process evaluation that included face-to-face interviews and surveys with participating offenders and participating court personnel. Although the sample size was quite small, the evaluators were able to determine that protocols related to community participation, substance abuse issues, rewards and consequences, and professional team members’ roles were adhered to according to program design.
Two articles describe the adoption, implementation, and preliminary measurement of Motivational Interviewing in federal probation offices. Motivational Interviewing is a style of communication first used in the treatment field and now being applied in criminal justice settings. Melissa Alexander, Scott W. VanBenschoten, and Scott T. Walters discuss the eight stages of learning Motivational Interviewing and the model implementation plan developed for federal probation offices. Scott T. Walters, Melissa Alexander, and Amanda M. Vader follow with “The Officer Responses Questionnaire: A Procedure for Measuring Reflective Listening in Probation and Parole Settings.” This article traces the development of a questionnaire to measure a probation officer’s ability to listen and respond with empathy. The Officer Response Questionnaire (ORQ) was administered on 80 officers in 5 districts, and the process and findings are delineated here.In Jack McDonough and William D. Burrell’s, “Offender Workforce Development: A New (and Better?) Approach to an Old Challenge,” we learn of an initiative to work with offenders to find them meaningful, long-term employment opportunities. This effort has been gaining momentum for several years in the federal probation system, and the article describes its implementation in the District of Delaware.
Given all the change being discussed here for federal probation offices to undertake, the impact on the staff and the role of the probation office is surely an issue of interest. James Paul and Lisa Feuerbach wrote “A Changing Role: Perspectives from Two Officers” to help inform the issue. These two officers from the Northern District of Iowa describe how they have seen their roles change as the district has moved toward adopting evidence-based practices.
Finally, we round out this special issue with the inclusion of two articles about the role of evidence-based practices in pretrial services. All of the federal courts have responsibility for completing an investigation of defendants immediately upon their arrest, making a recommendation to the judge regarding the appropriateness of the defendant’s release to the community while awaiting trial, and supervising those defendants who are released pretrial. All of the research behind evidence-based practices for community corrections has been conducted on post-conviction supervision clients, and all of it has as its goal the reduction of recidivism. The two articles by Carol M. Miyashiro and Timothy P. Cadigan address the applicability of the post-conviction supervision principles to the pretrial population. Both ask for a more critical review of what really is best for pretrial services outcomes. This special issue takes a snapshot in time of the workings of the federal probation and pretrial services system. Things are rapidly changing and the programs and efforts described here will continue to evolve. The hard work being undertaken by the districts represented here, and other districts not represented here, will surely add to the body of knowledge about what works in community corrections We are addressing the challenge of accurately measuring the impact of these changes on our ultimate goals of serving the courts and protecting society. This is difficult but incredibly important work, and the leadership of the federal system is determined not to let this effort fail. We hope that the information presented here helps inspire and challenge the readers and opens lines of communication to make the most of the expertise and experience of those among us.