Too Little, Too Much, Just Right: Reconsidering How Information Processing Matters for Individuals on Probation

SESSION INFO

Monday, August 29, 2022
9:15 AM - 10:15 AM
Session Type: Workshop

Probation agencies use the RNR (Risk Needs Responsivity) framework to inform practices, but these practices rarely consider the third central tenant -- ‘responsivity’. Responsivity refers to responding to individuals and their varied experiences including their trauma and treatment modality preferences. It also includes responding to individuals’ information capacity and experience sensitivity. For example, POs give individuals a lot of information without considering how much information they can handle. Further, individuals navigate community agencies to find housing, employment, and for programming, but rarely do we consider the information someone needs to feel prepared to do this. Nor do we typically acknowledge individuals’ previous, and possibly discriminatory, experiences navigating these systems. When POs consider information capacity and experience sensitivity, they can provide information individuals need and in the format that helps them succeed. During this session, presenters will offer how this concept of responsivity can enhance the working relationship between PO (Parole Officer) and individuals on probation and help individuals successfully complete probation.

SESSION PRESENTERS

Shannon Magnuson
Research Associate, George Mason University


Shannon Magnuson is a Senior Associate with JSP and a doctoral candidate at George Mason University. Her research primarily investigates organizational change and reform efforts in justice agencies. Ms. Magnuson has over five years of experience providing evidence-informed technical assistance to local, state, and federal justice agencies. She works with agencies on a variety of change efforts, including: identifying evidence-based programs to achieve goals, building organizational capacity for change, developing and facilitating initial and ongoing training for staff, and conducting outcome and process evaluations of change efforts. Ms. Magnuson’s dissertation is entitled: Solitary Diversion: Reforming Restricted Housing Units for Severely Mentally Ill Inmates. It describes one state’s effort to reform segregation for a special population and assesses how the reform changed: the volume and reasons for segregation placement, the experiences of those living and working in segregation, and the decisions administrators make to release individuals from segregation. Similar to this work, Ms. Magnuson’s publications include articles on prison reform efforts, organizational change in probation, and probation risk assessments


Michael Menefee
Research Associate, Justice System Partners


Michael Menefee is a Research Associate at Justice System Partners (JSP) and a doctoral candidate in sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. His research focuses on the effects of jail incarceration, probation supervision, and trauma among justice-involved populations. Michael has completed numerous studies which have been generously supported by the National Science Foundation and UC Berkeley. He has published research on racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic inequalities in the use of monetary bail and pretrial detention, the effects of jail incarceration on future criminal legal system involvement and labor market outcomes, and educational disparities among justice-involved populations in Michigan. Michael’s dissertation, entitled “Trauma and the Intergenerational Transmission of Disadvantage” uses nationally representative survey data to study the relationship between childhood trauma and inequalities in adulthood, including educational attainment and criminal legal system involvement.