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 Conditions of Supervision and Workload Allocation
Probation agencies are experiencing a rather challenging predicament
regarding how best to contribute to community safety by supervising
offenders in the community. Probation officers, initially, were perceived as
filling both “social worker” and “law enforcer” oriented roles when
interacting with offenders, their families, and treatment providers.
Currently, however, budget cuts and fiscal constraints are exacerbated by
growing numbers of offenders with felony convictions, especially sex
offenders, being placed on community supervision, and fostering a practical
problem of how to best supervise offenders spanning the continuum of risks
and needs. That is, how can probation officer time be spent to most
efficiently reduce recidivism? A significant issue in making such decisions
is understanding how caseloads (i.e., number of offenders supervised per
officer) translate into workload (i.e., the amount of time required to
supervise offenders). The American Probation and Parole Association (APPA)
has received funds from the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) to complete a
12-month project to examine the relationship between conditions imposed on
offenders and the community corrections workloads that results from such
conditions. APPA will review existing policies as well as develop and
distribute a short survey to examine the use of evidence-based principles to
make caseload and workload decisions. APPA and BJA plan to create a working
group of identified experts in the area of workload-caseload issues for
probation officers to draft a workload calculation formula.
Report:
Probation's Growing Caseloads and Workload Allocation: Strategies for
Managerial Decision Making
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