This Fact Sheet of the U.S. Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) addresses BJA’s efforts to understand the development and features of effective partnerships between probation and parole agencies that have the effect of reducing violent crime and recidivism by probationers and parolees.
The Council of State Governments (CSG) Justice Center and its partners - the Police Foundation, Association of Prosecuting Attorneys, and George Mason University’s Center for Advancing Correctional Excellence – cooperated with BJA in selecting three sites that have implemented probation and parole agency partnerships. The intent of this effort is to obtain information on how these sites established roles in the partnership and managed cooperation to improve information sharing, identify problems, make collaborative decisions, and perform continual auditing and adjustment of policies and procedures. From the information obtained from the three sites, the CSG Justice Center and its partners will identify common themes, promising policies, and effective practices for jurisdictions interested in planning and implementing similar partnerships. The three sites are profiled for 1) participation in an advisory committee to inform resources that guide future community corrections partnerships with law enforcement and/or prosecuting agencies and 2) the expansion of improvement in their existing partnerships. The three agencies profiled are the Dallas County (Texas) Community Supervision and Corrections Department, the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, and the Michigan Department of Corrections. BJA’s responsibilities are also briefly profiled.