OH Justice Involved Young Adults Initiative (JIYAI)

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 fiscal year (FY) 2016 Smart Supervision Program (SSP) seeks to improve probation and parole success rates and reduce the number of crimes committed by those under probation and parole supervision, which would in turn reduce admissions to prisons and jails and save taxpayer dollars. Funds can be used either to implement evidence-based supervision strategies or to innovate new strategies to improve outcomes for supervisees. 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 recipient will use award funds to implement focused curriculum training to selected specialized officers. The funding also allows for a partnership to provide comprehensive employment services. The program will be piloted in 3 larger counties (Cuyahoga, Hamilton, Franklin),who currently have a total of 850 moderate or higher risk justice involved young adults on supervision, as determined by the validated Ohio Risk Assessment System. The target population for this project is 240 moderate to high risk young adults, averaging at least 80 offenders per county.

CA/NCF