Supervision: What’s at Stake Sticking to the Status Quo
July 31, 2024 by Ashlin McMaken
At the end of 2023, nearly 3.8 million individuals were under supervision — roughly 800,000 on parole and 2.9 million on probation. These individuals require unique and thoughtful attention, whether it be supervisory terms, programs, or reporting. And though caseloads vary by jurisdiction, state, and even client, the industry estimates supervision officers have 50-200 cases to monitor, record, and manage at a given time. Feeling the pressure from this demanding workload, some states have gone as far as passing bills to cap the number of cases per officer.
Consider a teacher’s classroom. Over time, school administrators learned that fair student-to-teacher ratios can positively impact student outcomes. There is a need for an ideal class size to allow for adequate time spent on individual needs.
The connection can be made in the supervision realm. Large caseloads, limited resources, and a pressurizing capacity may hinder an officer’s ability to hold individuals accountable and point them in the right direction with the right resources. As a result, noncompliant individuals are sent back to court. In 2023, probation violations accounted for 42% of prison admissions.
To add another layer to this, supervision officers often work through paper-based processes, fencing them to their desk to complete necessary tasks. While their goal is to interact with individuals out in their jurisdictions, they are often focused on data entry, preparing reports, or conducting interviews — all time-intensive and error-prone processes. In 2023, probation officers wrote more than 63,000 pre-sentence reports, a 4% increase from the previous year. Meanwhile, pretrial service officers conducted more than 44,000 interviews to aid judges in release or detainment decisions, resulting in more than 70,000 pretrial service reports.
The pressure on officers is clear, but individuals under supervision face equally challenging barriers to success. Though it is sometimes argued that these individuals receive a more lenient outcome compared to those detained, the reality is in the numbers. Of supervised individuals:
- 27% are unemployed
- 25% don’t hold a high school diploma, GED, or college degree
- 49% earn an annual income less than $10,000
- Nearly a quarter have been diagnosed with a mental health illness or substance use disorder — twice that of the general public
All these circumstances combined propagate the problem — the likelihood of recidivism. After spending an average 135 days in jail awaiting pretrial, individuals on probation face the repercussions: losing their job, their home, their transportation, and sometimes their family. Facing an uphill battle, 56% are unsuccessful in following the Correctional Control 2018: Incarceration and supervision by state | Prison Policy Initiative, prompting their pathway back into incarceration.
This cycle impacts not only those in the justice system, but it also poses a financial detriment to government agencies. The Council of State Governments Justice Center studied 41 states to conclude that individuals returning to prison from probation or parole cost those states more than $8 billion in 2021. Similarly, pretrial detention alone costs the nation $13.6 billion annually — that’s nearly $32,000 per individual.
And according to the Administrative Office of the United States Courts, the cost of active supervision is eight times less the cost of incarceration. However, stakeholders often overlook the deep connection between the two systems, the need for synchronized, validated data to make informed decisions, or how supervision statuses interplay with incarceration.
To help change the trajectory of individuals receiving supervision, officers need the big picture. Unfortunately, they often work in a silo, with disjointed information from the court or correctional facility, missing critical pieces of information that could inform their supervisory responsibilities, like arrest history, demographics, and even mental health needs. How does one successfully transition back into society when the systems put in place don’t share the information needed to best serve them upon reentry?
Coupling the alarming 3.8 million individuals receiving supervision with the 2 million incarcerated individuals across local, state, and federal correctional facilities, the stakes are high. And the relationship between supervision, courts, and corrections is integral.
To better manage these interlinked systems, information must be leveraged across courts, pretrial, jails, and community service providers in real time. Data is the catalyst to informed decision-making, balancing both community safety and supervision outcomes.
Stay tuned for the next blog in this series as we explore how the success of individuals under supervision hinges on singular access to relevant data from diverse sources and the different types of data that could inform supervision outcomes.