Allegheny County's Smart Accountability Project

The Second Chance Act, signed into law on April 9, 2008, provides a comprehensive response to the increasing number of people who are released from prison and jail and returning to communities, including resources to address the myriad needs of these offenders to achieve a successful return to their communities. As a complement to the Second Chance Act programs, the FY 2015 Smart Supervision Program (SSP) seeks to improve probation and parole success rates, which would in turn improve public safety, reduce admissions to prisons and jails, and save taxpayer dollars. The goals of this program are to develop and test innovative strategies to implement evidence-based probation and parole approaches that improve supervision success rates, thereby increasing community safety, and reduce violent and other crime by effectively addressing individuals’ risk and needs and reducing recidivism.

The grantee will use the grant to strengthen supervision practices and offender outcomes through (1) expanded staff training on evidence based practices; (2) adoption of dosage-based supervision practices and metrics; and (3) design and use of an interactive dashboard for mobile workforce that supports quality assurance. The grantee will assess efforts to implement a data-driven, dosage-based supervision model using an action research framework that provides regular, actionable feedback.

CA/NCF