SMART Supervision CT

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 grant recipient will use the grant to support training of staff members working with one of the more high risk probation populations: 18 to 24 year old males. The funds will support: development of an information technology platform to store, catalogue and document advances in the program, and to provide space for user interaction; enhancement of the probation officer coaching initiative; and formalization of the professional development/feedback system. Collectively these strategies will improve organizational capacity to maintain information technology platform, conduct all future training, and have an audiotape analysis team.

CA/NCF