Part of the Bureau of Justice Assistance's (BJA) Second Chance Act suite of programs, the Smart Probation: Innovations in Supervision program provides community supervision agencies with funding, technical assistance, and new tools to improve supervision outcomes. The twin goals of this program are to improve agencies’ capacity to:

1. Provide services and support to individuals based on their assessed needs and facilitate or maintain community reintegration/successful completion of supervision through accountability and positive change.
2. Track the outcomes of current policies and practices and inform future decisions.

This program is also part of BJA’s Smart Suite of programs. At the heart of the Smart Suite is practitioner–researcher partnerships that use the “action research” approach. In “action research,” researchers work closely with practitioners to assess problems, identify effective strategies to address these problems, and provide real-time feedback to enhance decision-making.