Assessing and Implementing Evidence-based Practices for Probationer Services in Salinas

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 city of Salinas will use grant funds towards assessing and implementing evidence-based practices for probationer services in Salinas. The goals established for this project are to assess the use of evidence-based programs and strategies in use by service providers; bring existing evidence-based programs and strategies up to fidelity standards; provide training, materials, and technical assistance to implement new evidence-based programs and/or strategies among service providers; and enable service providers to track measurement indicators that show outcomes and can be used to inform practice. This project will serve approximately 300 high-risk AB109 individuals.

CA/NCF