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Balancing Accountability and Reality: Managing Legal Financial Obligations in Community Supervision
SESSION INFO
Monday, August 17, 2026
2:45 PM - 4:15 PM
Session Type: Workshop
Supervision professionals enforce legal financial obligations (LFOs) while supervising individuals struggling to meet basic needs (housing, transportation, family support). This creates tension between accountability, public safety, and fairness -- especially in times of economic contraction. This interactive session equips professionals with evidence-based strategies and practical tools for navigating LFO-related challenges with adult and juvenile supervisees. Drawing on research, practitioner experience, and lessons learned during COVID-era funding disruptions, participants examine how LFOs shape supervision decisions, officer-client relationships, and revocation risk, explore responsibly exercised discretion, communicate effectively with courts and stakeholders, and advocate within existing policy constraints without compromising supervision goals. The session will review recent research/policy trends related to LFO reductions in the juvenile system, prompting discussion about emerging approaches and practice implications. Through guided discussion, real-world case studies, and scenario-based exercises, participants will leave with strategies, language, and decision-making tools they can immediately apply when plans collide with financial realities.
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SESSION PRESENTERS
Dr. Ebony Ruhland
Associate Professor, Rutgers University
Ebony Ruhland, PhD received her Ph.D. from the School of Social Work at the University of Minnesota. Her research focuses on how criminal justice policies and practices impact individuals, families, and communities. Dr. Ruhland is currently working on research projects in four areas: 1) examining factors that lead to probation revocations, including the use probation conditions, specifically supervision fees; 2) exploring factors parole members consider to determine readiness for release; 3) identifying ways to bridge police and community relationships; and 4) examining the impacts of parental incarceration on children. Through her research, Dr. Ruhland hopes to find ways to improve criminal justice and corrections policies to reduce mass incarceration, racial disparities, and collateral consequences while at the same time maintaining public safety.
Chris Sullivan
Department Chair/Professor , University of Missouri St. Louis
Christopher J. Sullivan, PhD is E. Desmond Lee Endowed Professor of Youth Crime and Violence and Chair of the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Missouri-St. Louis (UMSL). He was Co-Editor of the Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency from 2017 to 2023. Dr. Sullivan received his doctorate in Criminal Justice from Rutgers University in 2005. He has published numerous articles and book chapters focused mainly on juvenile delinquency, juvenile justice, developmental and life-course criminology, and research and analytic methods. He is author of Taking Juvenile Justice Seriously: Developmental Insights and System Challenges (Temple University Press, 2019), which was selected as an Outstanding Contribution by the American Society of Criminology’s Division of Developmental and Life Course Criminology in 2020. He is co-author of the 2021 book, Juvenile Risk and Needs Assessment: Theory, Research, Policy, and Practice (Routledge). Dr. Sullivan has been named a 250th Anniversary Fellow at Rutgers University and Fellow of the Graduate School at the University of Cincinnati for his research and has received award recognition for his mentoring and teaching of graduate students and academic service.
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