Yolo County Alternative Approaches to Supervision

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 funds to support a project with an overall goal to reduce recidivism and the number of state prison commitments. The program will draw upon best practices from the Hawaii Opportunity Probation with Enforcement (HOPE) Project, as well as the California Assembly Bill 109 shift in community supervision. Specifically, the program will utilize fair incentives and sanctions that will be directly tied to the probationer’s actions and behavior. The use of rewards and consequences is expected to lead to a reduction in probation violations.

CA/NCF