FY 19 SCF: Partnering Community Supervision with Accountability Courts

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 award recipient will develop and enhance SCF principles and implement an SCF Responses Program model to reduce recidivism and provide better outcomes for program participants. Grant funds will be used to establish, expand, or improve SCF strategies to be sustained by the applicant after the award period.

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.

The recipient will use funds towards expansion and implementation of evidence-based accountability court programs to serve high-risk, high need probationers who have substance use disorder and/or mental illness and are at risk of being revoked to prison. The core of accountability court programs is swift, certain, and fair sanctions with intense monitoring and treatment. Overall target population goal, over the 3-year period, is to serve 240 offenders. In addition, a portion of funds will be used to hire a project coordinator to develop policies, procedures, and protocols for community supervision officers in up to 4 pilot judicial circuits to refer probationers at risk of revocation into an appropriate accountability court program. The research partner will analyze data to identify which circuits would be best suited for the pilot based on high revocation and low sanction/incentive rates, as well as location of accountability court programs whose service numbers show they have capacity for growth.

CA/NCF