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In 2014, the researchers began work on a grant from the National Institute of Justice to evaluate the effectiveness of home and field contacts in community supervision. The study was designed to describe the varying practices of home and other field contacts in community supervision, to document their use nationwide, and to evaluate their effectiveness in maintaining public safety and promoting compliance with supervision requirements. The research is designed to address the gap in the understanding of home and field contacts as part of community supervision.

While home and field contacts with clients are common practice within many probation and parole agencies, little is known about how they are conducted, the goals of their use, and whether they impact client outcomes. Researchers conducted a mixed methods study of home and field contact practices within multiple agencies. A nationwide survey of community supervision agencies at the federal, state, and local levels was conducted to understand common policies and practices for home and field contacts. To analyze the effectiveness of home and field contacts, quasi-experimental designs were employed using administrative data. To understand the activities that make up home and field contacts and the goals behind them within each agency, officers were asked to complete a qualitative home and field contact checklist and participate in focus groups.

The Long-Term Risk-Need-Responsivity (RNR) Impact Study was a pre-post, quasi-experimental study of the impact of the implementation of risk-needs assessment (RNA) and risk-need-responsivity-related (RNR) case management in 5 juvenile probation offices in 2 states. This study used 3 time points (pre-implementation, 1st year post-implementation, and 7th-year post-implementation) to examine the 7-year sustainability of impacts on system-responses (rates of informal processing, different dispositions, and out-of-home placements), youth outcomes (school and employment), and recidivism; as well as cost-effectiveness.

This study also examined whether there was a significant difference in the impacts of implementation after 7 years between probation offices that were effective versus ineffective in their first year of implementation.

These data are part of NACJD's Fast Track Release and are distributed as they were received from the data depositor. The files have been zipped by NACJD for release, but not checked or processed except for the removal of direct identifiers. Users should refer to the accompanying readme file for a brief description of the files available with this collection and consult the investigator(s) if further information is needed.

The purpose of the Probation/Parole Officer's (PPO) portion of the study was designed to capture work experiences, caseload, and several important issues related to information systems assimilation (i.e., work environment, caseload, technical support, system reliability and consistency, perceived usefulness of information and system, perceived ease of use, attitude toward the current GPS system and the program, intention to use, actual use, access to system, flexibility of the system to adapt to user needs, integration of information into other agency processes, quality of output, comprehensiveness of information provided, format of the system display and output provided, timeliness of obtaining the information, speed of system operation, overall satisfaction with monitoring system, training provided, value added to the officers efforts by the monitoring system, and ease of learning to use the system).

The single data file (PPO_survey_data_9182014.sav) contains 102 variables and 55 cases.

This research uses in-depth cases studies in five counties, combining interviews and observations, interviews with state reform leaders, and a statewide survey, to examine juvenile probation officers' use of the Youth Level of Service/Case Management Inventory (YLS/CMI) in local practice. In particular, the study assessed the form YLS/CMI policies take in local Pennsylvania counties and their consistency with the Risk-Need-Responsivity (RNR) model, the extent to which officers' routine practices align with policies and RNR principles, and how state and county factors have shaped local policies and practices. In doing so, it sought to highlight promising strategies for effective RNA implementation. Study findings describe an example of an apparently well-planned statewide effort to implement and support the YLS/CMI in local counties, involving a sustained attention to attention to training, quality assurance, and problem-solving. Local county policies, while showing some variation, focused on strategies for conducting the YLS/CMI assessment and applying its results to a variety of decisions and activities--supporting, in particular, risk and need principles. Study results further suggest a substantial statewide level of practitioner adherence to a general policy model, though this pattern was stronger for some activities than others, and varied substantially by local county. Variation in implementation across counties seemed to relate, in particular, to the extent of local quality assurance processes, leadership enthusiasm for the YLS/CMI, staff enthusiasm for evidence-based practices (with implications for training and recruitment), and organizational climate.

These data are part of NACJD's Fast Track Release and are distributed as they were received from the data depositor. The files have been zipped by NACJD for release, but not checked or processed except for the removal of direct identifiers. Users should refer to the accompanying readme file for a brief description of the files available with this collection and consult the investigator(s) if further information is needed.

This project, The Santa Cruz Research Partnership, was developed to document how one central coast California county probation department adopted evidence based practices (EBP) and whether the adoption of these practices reduced gender and racial/ethnic disparities. To examine how these EBP related changes have affected their department, the National Council on Crime and Delinquency (NCCD) completed three studies for this National Institute of Justice (NIJ) grant. Specifically, NCCD: 1) completed interviews with the entire probation department staff to examine how the adoption of EBP affects the daily practices of the probation department, 2) analyzed case management system data to understand how the adoption of a probation violation graduated response grid affected outcomes for probationers, and 3) analyzed case management system data to examine why Latino probationers are more likely to have bench warrants issued against them even though they have statistically significantly lower risk levels.