Reducing Adversity to Client Engagement and Success on Supervision (RACESS)

Purpose: The Reducing Adversity to Client Engagement and Success on Supervision (RACESS) project addresses barriers to client success on community supervision.   Justice involved individuals have higher rates of unemployment, poverty, and barriers to employment. Economic marginalization impacts client success on supervision, particularly in rural areas, by creating additional barriers to education, employment, treatment, and programming opportunities. These barriers reduce an individual’s ability to participate in required programming to successfully complete supervision.  In Rice County, individuals in African-American, Latine, and East African cultural communities have higher rates of unemployment and poverty, compared to the general county population.  Strategic efforts in this project will: reduce economic barriers; promote equity in opportunities to access services; build community connections; increase skill building opportunities; and assist in victim restoration.  By increasing success opportunities, the project will reduce the likelihood of technical violations that often result in sanctions or incarceration.  
 

Primary activities: This project’s activities focus on improving supervision outcomes by creating equitable access to services, training, resources, and opportunities. This will assist clients in creating, increasing, and maintaining community connections, stability, and self-efficacy. These opportunities will be provided by increasing staff skills, increasing agency programming options, collaborating with community partners for services within the agency, assisting clients with barriers to participation (ie. Transportation and child care), and providing a path for clients to make reparations to their victims.
 

 Outcomes: By reducing barriers to success on supervision, client rates of successful completion of programming, probation terms, and victim restitution will increase.  Conversely, technical violations, client unemployment rates, client risk levels, and outstanding restitution to victims will decrease.  These metrics will be tracked throughout the project through internal client and court records.
 

Service area: Located 40 miles south of Minneapolis/St. Paul, Rice County, Minnesota is a rural county of approximately 67,000 people.  The area has become dramatically more diverse in recent years.  Employment is primarily industrial and retail.  There are limited public transportation options in the county. 
 

Project Beneficiaries: The primary beneficiaries of this project are economically disadvantaged, justice involved individuals on community supervision, victims, and the community.  Based upon local statistics, this will impact underserved communities at a higher rate, given the disproportional representation of these communities in the overall unemployment and poverty rates.  Within Rice County this specifically includes African American, Latine and Somali individuals.