By William D. Burrell
Probation and parole agencies in the US...
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By Rebekah Diller
The Maryland legislature has taken...
Read full entry »A new public opinion survey on crime and sentencing issues gives policymakers some breathing room on moves to reduce prison populations during this time of budget crises in states. Most registered voters believe that about one fifth of inmates could be released and not pose a threat to public safety, said the survey sponsored by the Pew Center on the States' Public Safety Performance Project.
The survey found vast majorities (nearly 90%) favoring the concept of fewer low-risk and non-violent offenders behind bars to keep more violent offenders imprisoned, and to reinvest any money saved in probation and parole improvements. About 2/3 of Democrats and about half of Republicans "strongly" favor" such changes, meaning that they have reasonably strong bipartisan backing.
Daniel Franklin of the Benenson Strategy Group, which did the survey with Public Opinion Strategies, said that most Americans see crime policy "through a personal rather than political lens." At the same time, both Franklin and Bill McInturff of Public Opinion Strategies said that politicians in general still would be wise not to be portrayed as "soft on crime."
The survey, of 1,200 registered voters across the U.S. taken last March, found that the citizenry may not be so harsh on crime as some political candidates may believe. Only 37 percent, for example, believe that anyone who sells drugs should be sent to prison on a first offense; the number jumps to 43 percent for burglaries in unoccupied homes and for offenses committed by people on probation and parole (63 percent automatic prison for probationers or parolees possessing drugs with the intent to sell, for example.)
The public is more favorable to cutting spending prisons than on some other key governmental functions. Asked in which areas cuts are not acceptable, 71 percent named schools but only 27 percent identified prisons. The survey showed strong support for the "justice reinvestment" concept of using money saved from cutting back on prison expenditures for probation and parole programs, 86 percent finding the idea "convincing."
Despite the fact that national crime report totals have been dropping since the mid-1990s, people surveyed believe violent crime inceased nearly 30 percent last year, about the same number as 2001.
The survey offered some advice for criminal justice reformers on the terms they use for offenders who are out of prison. "Mandatory supervision" was by far the most popular. "Alternatives to incarceration" and "intensive supervision" scored somewhat lower. Even lower than that were "community corrections" and "intermediate sanctions." Focus groups indicated that many equate community corrections with community service, which struck many as a "light" punishment. The pollsters' conclusion: "Using unfamiliar technical language could backfire."
"Rehabilitation" didn't come out very well as a main purpose of prison, getting only 25 percent of the vote compared with 31 percent for protecing society and 20 percent for punishment. Rehab scored 40 percent in a similar survey in 2001, although "justice to victims" was not included as a choice then. When added this time around, it got 10 percent of the votes.
McInturff, who has done surveys for Republicans, said a general conclusion of the survey was that Americans want a criminal justice system where offenders are held accountable but that they also are aware of shrinking state budgets and believe that prison populations can be reduced responsibly. A summary of the survey can be found at http://www.pewcenteronthestates.org/initiatives_detail.aspx?initiativeID=60775
Read full entry »In my last post, I raised the following question: How do we address the growing population of incarcerated individuals with mental illness?
One approach gaining popularity around the country is the idea of “specialized caseloads” for parole officers. Practically, what this means is that parolees with mental illness are assigned to parole officers who have received training on how to best manage this population and carry a reduced caseload.
One of my recent cases is a perfect example of how this can work:
Mr. M was a 47 year old man referred to me by his parole officer. He had been convicted years before of a bank robbery, and his prior terms of release had been unsuccessful, usually related to his use of cocaine and failure to take his prescribed medication. Within months of release, he relapsed and became psychotic, manic and disorganized. Standard parole officer responses of threats and ultimately of movement toward revocation ensued.
During the initial months of my treatment with him, he adhered to his medication regimen, participated in therapy sessions, engaged in 12 step meetings, and lived in a halfway house for people committed to recovery. After two years or so, he came to an appointment speaking rapidly and loudly, and he was somewhat disorganized. Despite these symptoms, he adamantly denied using cocaine or other drugs, insisted that he had been taking all of his medications as prescribed, and agreed to take any tests I asked him to take. However, he steadfastly refused to consider being admitted into the hospital even for a short period of stabilization.
I contacted his PO who spoke with Mr. M via speaker phone. The PO reinforced my recommendation that he agree to go into a hospital, but he continued to refuse. His PO asked him why he would not agree, expressing his concern with Mr. M that if he remained unstable and refused to hospitalize himself, the PO would be left with a decision about pursuing revocation. Mr. M then said: “Today is the 28th of the month. My check comes on the 3rd. If you live where I live and you ain’t home when your check comes, it won’t be there when you get back.”
After a bit more discussion, Mr. M agreed to enter a “day hospital,” which is a program where people attend intensive treatment during the day but return home every evening. Designed as a short term intervention, together we decided that this would be a reasonable compromise for Mr. M, allowing him to access more intensive evaluation and treatment while not removing him from his home setting. He attended the day hospital for three weeks, his medications were adjusted, and he returned to outpatient care and to his parole without further incident.
This plan worked because the PO and I had devised an agreement that problem behaviors should be seen first as requiring a therapeutic response, and only when therapeutic efforts failed to resolve the situation should enforcement actions be considered. This PO was a “mental health specialist” in his agency, carrying a reduced caseload of parolees, all of whom had mental health problems. His smaller caseload allowed him to do the needed case management that permitted his parolees to access care and minimized their returns to incarceration.
Examples of jurisdictions that provide specialized approaches to probationers or parolees with mental illness include the United States Probation Office, the Cook County Mental Health Unit, the New York State Division of Parole, and the Project Renewal Parole Support and Treatment Program.
Why don’t all probation and parole offices have specialized caseloads? Given the prevalence of mental health issues among the parolee and probationer population, this seems to be an obvious solution. Is it really that much more expensive than recurrent incarcerations?
Erik Roskes is a forensic psychiatrist and currently the Director of Forensic Services at the Springfield Hospital Center in Maryland. The opinions expressed are those of the author only, and do not represent those of any of Dr. Roskes’ employers or consultees, including the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. He can be found a http://mysite.verizon.net/eroskes.
Read full entry »Efforts by probation and parole officers to improve their public image took a big hit with the 18-year abduction of Jaycee Lee Dugard in California and the critical report issued in early November by an inspector general in California.
Defendant Phillip Garrido, a sex offender, was visited periodically by a parole officer, but it took nearly two decades to catch on to the fact that he had abducted the then-11-year-old Dugard and later fathered two children with her.
Granted that it was a parole officer who finally discovered the scheme this summer, why did it take so long?
Experts say that parole officers should be making spot checks on their clients periodically, including thorough searches of their living conditions. Some places use polygraphs, although it is not clear that submitting Garrido to a polygraph exam would have uncovered his scheme.
Veteran parole officers know that sex offenders typically are “manipulative and secretive,” says Bill Burrell, former director of adult probation in New Jersey, who now trains officials. “They don’t want people looking around” to find violations of their release conditions. Agents appear to have done only superficial checking on Garrido, Burrell says, adding, “They should have done more aggressive searches of the property.”
Another longtime parole official, who declined to be identified, called the California case a “major screw-up.” Said this official: “One of the main reasons to do home visits is to ensure there is nothing out of the ordinary occurring at the residence. The fact that they did not see the tent [where the young women were living] is unbelievable. Thorough examination of the residence looking for signs of wrongful activities specific to the offender's criminal history is vital.”
Crime policy in the U.S. often has been made on the basis of extreme cases. Burrell worries that the Dugard-Garrido case will lead to longer prison terms for sex offenders. Instead, he says, it should serve as a good case study for parole officers to uncover rare frauds like Garrido’s.
The case also should be a cautionary tale for those who might overrely on GPS devices. Through a GPS system, “we knew where [Garrido] was,” Burrell says. The problem was that officials didn’t know what he was really doing.
Probation and parole experts hope that California officials will go public with a complete explanation of what happened—and didn’t—in their monitoring of Garrido. The initial signs are not promising. At a mid-September court appearance, a prosecutor said there might not be a trial for 18 months. State officials wouldn’t give details of his parole supervision and wouldn’t even disclose to the Sacramento Bee the official policy on how often they should have inspected the premises.
This refusal to discuss the case will not help public understanding of the challenges faced by probation and parole officers, who are on the front lines of tracking millions of convicted Americans.
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