Summit County Offender Recidivism Reduction (SCORR)

The Innovative Responses to Behavior in the Community: Swift, Certain, and Fair (SCF) Supervision Program provides state and local parole and probation agencies with information, resources, and training and technical assistance to improve responses to offender behavior in accordance with the principles of swiftness, certainty, and fairness to prevent recidivism and reduce crime in their jurisdictions.

The overall purpose of the SCF Program is to expand those principles and test new implementations of SCF responses to increase probation and parole success rates. Additionally, the SCF Program seeks to reduce the number of crimes committed by those under probation and parole supervision, which would in turn reduce crime, decrease admissions to prisons and jails (in a safe, responsible manner), and save taxpayer dollars.

The SCF Program is part of BJA’s Innovations in Public Safety portfolio, also known as the “Innovations Suite.” BJA’s Innovations Suite of programs invests in the development of practitioner-researcher partnerships that use data, evidence, and innovation to create strategies 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 direct resources to the highest priorities. The Innovations Suite of programs represents a strategic approach that leverages innovative applications of analysis, technology, and evidence-based practices with the goal of improving performance and making America safer.

Grants funded under Category 1, Implementing and Testing the SCF Principles, will develop and enhance SCF principles and implement a SCF Responses Program model to reduce recidivism and provide better outcomes for program participants. Programs will establish, expand, or improve SCF strategies to be sustained by the applicant after the award period.

The grant recipient will use the grant funds for the implementation of the SCF model as part of the Summit County Offender Recidivism Reduction (SCORR)program. The deliverables will include: (1) designing strategies and procedures compliant with SCF principles and practices, (2) development of a sanction grid, (3) evaluation based on research and informed data captured during the project, (4) producing a midterm and final report that includes an outcome/impact evaluation, and (5) completing focus groups with probationers and identifying a comparison group. The overall goal is to reduce the recidivism rate and drug use among probationers.

CA/NCF