E-GPS: Reducing Recidivism and Improving Outcomes of Female Parolees

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) 2017 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.

BJA’s “Smart Suite” of programs invest in the development of practitioner-researcher partnerships that use data, evidence, and innovation to create strategies and interventions that are effective and economical. This data-driven approach enables jurisdictions to understand the full nature and extent of the crime challenges they are facing and to target resources to the highest priorities. The Smart Suite of programs, which includes the Smart Supervision Program, represents a strategic approach that brings more “science” into criminal justice operations by leveraging innovative applications of analysis, technology, and evidence-based practices with the goal of improving performance and effectiveness while containing costs.

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 awarded grant funds to support post-release services and programming for female parolees. This award will provide the resources needed to implement a pilot program to test the efficacy of a gender-specific, enhanced parole supervision methodology for female offenders. Whereas the women in the comparison group will receive standard treatment while in custody, those in the treatment group will receive enhanced treatment just before release (approx. 55-65 women are released per month). The sources and interventions in the program include childcare, transportation, hygiene, health, peer-support, motivational support, trauma-informed care, enhanced mental health services, etc. The eligibility of these treatment interventions will be based upon the risk-assessments and need inventories, including the LSI-R, SPIn-W, ACE Study, and a generalized PTSD tool.

CA/NCF