BJA FY 22 Community Supervision Resource Center

The Center for Effective Public Policy (CEPP), in partnership with the American Probation and Parole Association (APPA), the Association of Paroling Authorities International (APAI), the National Association of Pretrial Services Agencies (NAPSA), and the Center for Justice Innovation, will supplement the activities of the Community Supervision Resource Center (CSRC). The CSRC serves pretrial, probation, and parole supervision agencies and helps them align their operations with best and evidence-based practices. The purpose of the CSRC is to support state, local, and tribal jurisdictions and agencies in implementing supervision policies, programs, and practices that promote successful outcomes and ensure public safety.
Project activities include a continuation of the work established in partnership with the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) in 2022, including establishing a resource hub for entities responsible for community supervision, offering a library of resources, and providing free, high-quality training and technical assistance (TTA) on a range of topics, including but not limited to evidence-based supervision practices, responses to negative and positive behavior, equity and racial disparities, gender-responsive approaches, officer wellness and safety, and workforce operations, to pretrial, probation, and parole supervision agencies.

More than 100,000 pretrial, probation, and parole officers manage the more than 3.7 million adults under community supervision in the United States. Providing professional support to those working in the community supervision field remains critical. This workforce experiences unique challenges with employee recruitment and retention, increasingly high supervision caseloads, high rates of supervision failure and system reinvolvement (particularly for certain categories of people), limited access to supportive services for clients, and difficult working conditions.

The Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) established the Community Supervision Resource Center (CSRC) through a cooperative agreement with the Center for Effective Public Policy (CEPP) to help support and provide an ongoing resource to community supervision authorities, and to assist them in advancing faster along the continuum of best practices. The CSRC helps agencies understand where they are on this continuum, define where they want to be, and take the steps needed to get there.

The CSRC has already begun to successfully translate and share knowledge with the community supervision field, develop tools to help agencies operationalize that knowledge to strengthen and make their work more effective, and provide training and technical assistance. CEPP, its partners (the American Probation and Parole Association, the Association of Paroling Authorities International, the National Association of Pretrial Services Agencies, the Center for Justice Innovation, and The Fortune Society), subject matter experts, and the CSRC’s National Steering Committee are uniquely positioned to continue to lead the CSRC and expand its scope.

In the next fiscal year, additional activities include enhancing and growing the CSRC by marketing the website and online community, developing new tools for the field, delivering training, providing ad-hoc technical assistance, providing training and technical assistance to two community supervision agency cohorts and the Innovations in Supervision sites, expanding the pool of subject matter experts, and leading the National Steering Committee.

Through centralizing critical resources, offering trainings, and providing technical assistance, the CSRC will strengthen agency practices and build a network of practitioners committed to pursuing innovative and best practices.