A Preliminary Evaluation of the Supervision With Immediate Enforcement Probation Program for Adult Gang–Affiliated Offenders in Texas

2018 ◽  
Vol 45 (7) ◽  
pp. 1047-1070
Author(s):  
Denise Paquette Boots ◽  
Jennifer Wareham ◽  
Kelli Stevens-Martin ◽  
Nina Barbieri
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Young Adult ◽  
Problem Solving ◽  
High Risk ◽  
The United States ◽  
Community Supervision ◽  
Preliminary Evaluation ◽  
Gang Members ◽  
Problem Solving Courts

As of 2012, it was estimated that there were more than 30,000 active gangs in the United States with at least 850,000 members. Despite significant challenges that criminal justice agencies and personnel face in treating and supervising gang members, few studies have examined adult gang member outcomes and the effects of community supervision on gang-affiliated offenders. Recent research demonstrates mixed evidence that high-risk offenders have better outcomes in smaller problem-solving courts and programs, which have dual emphasis on rehabilitation and deterrence-based approaches to corrections. This study evaluates the efficacy of the Supervision with Immediate Enforcement (SWIFT) Court Program for young adult gang–affiliated probationers compared with non-SWIFT gang members and high-risk non-gang offenders. Findings indicated SWIFT had a moderate deterrent impact on offending compared with alternative probation sanctions. Results and discussion related to problem-solving courts and policy-related issues surrounding gang-affiliated and youthful violent offenders are offered.

Drug Courts

Criminology ◽  
2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Boldt ◽  
James L. Nolan
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Problem Solving ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Drug Court ◽  
The United States ◽  
Outcome Studies ◽  
Drug Courts ◽  
Problem Solving Courts

Several thousand drug courts operate in jurisdictions throughout the United States. Similar courts have been established in Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, and elsewhere. The first drug court appeared in Dade County, Florida, in 1989. This initial effort and other first-generation drug courts helped to establish a model for subsequent problem-solving courts focused on substance use disorders, mental illness, domestic violence, and other circumstances that frequently co-occur with criminal justice system involvement. A range of problem-solving courts—including mental health courts, DUI (driving under the influence) courts, veterans courts, prostitution courts, re-entry courts, and gambling courts—have been developed both in the United States and internationally based on the drug court model. The design of these specialty courts emphasizes collaboration rather than an adversarial due-process-based approach to decision-making, therapeutic interventions instead of the legal resolution of disputed cases, and informal, individualized engagement by judges and other court actors. Key features of the drug court model include the placement of defendants in treatment programs, the close judicial monitoring of defendants though periodic status hearings, and the use of criminal penalties as leverage to retain defendants in treatment. Some drug courts engage criminal defendants prior to the adjudication of their charges, but increasingly these courts operate post-plea with the imposition of program requirements as conditions of probation or a suspended sentence. Drug courts have been a politically popular response to the problems of over-incarceration and criminal system overload produced in part by the late-20th-century “war on drugs.” Outcome studies often report successes in reducing drug use and criminal recidivism. Significant critiques of the drug court model and of problem-solving courts more generally have been offered, however, raising questions about the reliability of the outcome studies and about other negative consequences of the model, including net-widening, debasement of the therapeutic intentions of the enterprise, and other distortions in both the behavioral health treatment system and the criminal justice system.

Mass Probation from Micro to Macro: Tracing the Expansion and Consequences of Community Supervision

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 261-279 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michelle S. Phelps
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Mass Incarceration ◽  
The United States ◽  
Causal Effects ◽  
Community Supervision ◽  
Demographic Groups

Between 1980 and 2007, probation rates in the United States skyrocketed alongside imprisonment rates; since 2007, both forms of criminal justice control have declined in use. Although a large literature in criminology and related fields has explored the causes and consequences of mass incarceration, very little research has explored the parallel rise of mass probation. This review takes stock of our knowledge of probation in the United States. In the first section, I trace the expansion of probation historically, across states, and for specific demographic groups. I then summarize the characteristics of adults on probation today and what we know about probation revocation. Lastly, I review the nascent literature on the causal effects of probation for individuals, families, neighborhoods, and society. I end by discussing a plan for research and the growing movement to blunt the harms of mass supervision.

American Exceptionalism in Crime and Punishment

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Cultural Values ◽  
Racial Inequality ◽  
Crime Control ◽  
Ethnic Disparities ◽  
American Exceptionalism ◽  
The United States ◽  
Community Supervision ◽  
Crime And Punishment

The idea of American exceptionalism has made frequent appearances in discussions of criminal justice policies—as it has in many other areas—to help portray or explain problems that are especially acute in the United States, including mass incarceration, retention of the death penalty, racial and ethnic disparities in punishment, and the War on Drugs. While scholars do not universally agree that it is an apt or useful framework, there is no question that the United States is an outlier compared with other industrialized democracies in its punitive and exclusionary criminal justice policies. This book deepens the debate on American exceptionalism in crime and punishment through comparative political, economic, and historical analyses, working toward forward-looking prescriptions for American law, policy, and institutions of government. The chapters expand the existing American Exceptionalism literature to neglected areas such as community supervision, economic penalties, parole release, and collateral consequences of conviction; explore claims of causation, in particular that the history of slavery and racial inequality has been a primary driver of crime policy; examine arguments that the framework of multiple governments and localized crime control, populist style of democracy, and laissez-faire economy are implicated in problems of both crime and punishment; and assess theories that cultural values are the most salient predictors of penal severity and violent crime. The book asserts that the largest problems of crime and justice cannot be brought into focus from the perspective of a single jurisdiction and that comparative inquiries are necessary for an understanding of the current predicament in the United States.

Problem-Solving Courts and the Criminal Justice System

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
David DeMatteo ◽  
Kirk Heilbrun ◽  
Shelby Arnold ◽  
Alice Thornewill
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Problem Solving ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Behavioral Health ◽  
Criminal Behavior ◽  
Justice System ◽  
The United States ◽  
Team Approach ◽  
Problem Solving Courts

Individuals with behavioral health disorders are significantly overrepresented in the criminal justice system. The incarceration of offenders with substance use disorders and mental illness has contributed to dramatic growth in the incarcerated population in the United States. Problem-solving courts provide judicially supervised treatment for behavioral health needs commonly found among offenders, including substance abuse and mental health, and they treat a variety of offender populations. By addressing the problems that underlie criminal behavior, problem-solving courts seek to decrease the “revolving door” that results when offender needs are not addressed. Problem-solving courts use a team approach among the judge, defense attorney, prosecutor, and treatment providers, which is a paradigm shift in how the justice system treats offenders with special needs. Offenders in problem-solving courts are held accountable for their behavior while being provided with judicially supervised treatment designed to reduce the risk of reoffending. Despite the proliferation of problem-solving courts, there are unanswered questions about how they function, how effective they are, and the most promising ways to implement problem-solving justice. Problem-Solving Courts and the Criminal Justice System is the first book to focus broadly on problem-solving courts. The changing landscape of the criminal justice system, recent development of problem-solving courts, and ongoing shift toward offender rehabilitation underscore the need for this book. This book provides those in the fields of mental health, criminal justice, law, and related fields with a comprehensive foundation of information related to the role of problem-solving courts in reforming the criminal justice system. This book also provides researchers, academics, administrators, and policy-makers with an overview of the existing research on problem-solving courts, including the challenges faced by researchers when examining these courts.

scholarly journals New Directions in Community Supervision: Should We Target High Risk Offenders, High Risk Times, and High Risk Locations?

2012 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 77-101 ◽  
Author(s):  
James M. Byrne
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
High Risk ◽  
Evaluation Studies ◽  
The United States ◽  
Community Supervision ◽  
New Directions ◽  
Simple Question ◽  
Risk Dimensions

This paper addresses a simple question: what have researchers in the United States and other countries learned about probation performance generally and the effectiveness of specific probation practices in particular? While the ‘science’ derived from the evaluation studies is still weak, it has been argued that probation could be organized along three risk dimensions, targeting high-risk times, high-risk offenders and high-risk locations. Research examining these risk dimensions is presented here, and the implications for an emerging desistance-based probation paradigm are considered

Business as Usual? Bail Decision Making and “Micro Politics” in an Australian Magistrates Court

2017 ◽  
Vol 42 (02) ◽  
pp. 325-346 ◽  
Author(s):  
Max Travers
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Problem Solving ◽  
Plea Bargaining ◽  
The United States ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
Criminal Courts ◽  
Problem Solving Courts ◽  
Business As Usual

Between the 1970s and 1990s, political scientists in the United States pursued a distinctive research program that employed ethnographic methods to study micro politics in criminal courts. This article considers the relevance of this concept for court researchers today through a case study about bail decision making in a lower criminal court in Australia. It describes business as usual in how decisions are made and the provision of pretrial services. It also looks at how traditionalists and reformers understood business as usual, and uses this as a critical concept to make visible micro politics in this court. The case study raises issues about organizational change in criminal courts since the 1990s, since there are fewer studies about plea bargaining and more about specialist or problem-solving courts. It is suggested that we need a new international agenda that can address change and continuity in criminal courts.

Other Specialty Courts

2019 ◽  
pp. 113-133
Author(s):  
David DeMatteo ◽  
Kirk Heilbrun ◽  
Alice Thornewill ◽  
Shelby Arnold
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Domestic Violence ◽  
Problem Solving ◽  
The United States ◽  
Drug Courts ◽  
Political Climate ◽  
Problem Solving Courts ◽  
Specialty Courts ◽  
Treatment Courts ◽  
Community Courts

The development and success of drug courts resulted in the development of many other types of problem-solving courts. This chapter provides an overview of these other types of problem-solving courts in the United States, including (but not limited to) domestic violence courts, family dependency treatment courts, homelessness courts, truancy courts, veterans courts, DUI/DWI courts, and community courts. This chapter summarizes the sparse research that has been conducted on these courts and considers the future of these types of problem-solving courts. Specifically, this chapter considers whether there is a need for so many highly specific problem-solving courts, how these courts can expand their reach (and whether they should), aspects of these courts that are in need of additional research, and how these courts can function most effectively in today’s economic and political climate.

Collateral Sanctions and American Exceptionalism

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nora V. Demleitner
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
High Risk ◽  
American Exceptionalism ◽  
The United States ◽  
Criminal Record ◽  
European Model ◽  
Broad Array ◽  
Collateral Sanctions

This chapter presents a comparative analysis of collateral sanctions, which encompass a broad array of restrictions that befall offenders in addition to their sentence during the time they are under a criminal justice sanction and often well beyond. Differences between European countries and the United States with respect to the imposition, the number, the types, and the length of collateral sanctions reflect strikingly dissimilar philosophies about how to treat those with a criminal record. The European model prioritizes reintegration and rehabilitation while the United States continues to exclude and penalize those who ran afoul of the law. On both sides of the Atlantic, however, offenders considered at a high risk of reoffending have increasingly been subjected to collateral sanctions.

Victoria's “Day in Prison Program”: An Evaluation and Critique

1993 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 171-183 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pat O'Malley ◽  
Garry Coventry ◽  
Reece Walters
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Young Adult ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Crime Prevention ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Evaluation Research ◽  
The United States ◽  
Prison Programs ◽  
Research Findings

The use of “Day in Prison” programs to deter young adult offenders is a concept which originated in the United States and was replicated in Australia during the late 1970s. After almost a decade of uncertainty this model of ‘crime prevention’ re-emerged in Victoria with the introduction of a pilot “Day in Prison” program. This article traces the development and operation of the Victorian experience and provides evaluation research findings which conclude that coercive, intimidatory and degrading aversion techniques should not be utilised by the criminal justice system for the purposes of individual deterrence.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document