Though the U.S. has the highest incarceration rate in the free world, there has been a silver lining. Over the past few years, the trend is for probationers and parolees not to reoffend. According to the latest statistics from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, 68% of probationers completed their term of supervision or were discharged early during 2012, up from 66% in 2011, and 58% of parolees completed their term of supervision or were discharged early in 2012, up from 52% in 2011. Further good news: The reincarceration rate among parolees at risk for violating their conditions of supervision continued to decline, dropping to 9% during 2012 from about 12% in 2011. 
 

The report Probation and Parole in the United States, 2012 furthers that, during 2012, the overall number of adults under community supervision declined by about 40,500 during 2012, down to 4,781,300 offenders at yearend 2012 (decreasing 0.75%). 
 

However, with the trend away from prison and jail time, courts are shifting their punishment, and in some locales prison and jail populations are falling and community treatment is rising. California is a prime example. From 2010 to 2011, the number of persons entering probation in California increased 1.5% and from 2011 to 2012 it increased about 7%.

Thus, despite efforts to release offenders back into society—and reduce budgets—there remained nearly 4.8 million adults at yearend 2012 on come sort of community supervision. 

Supervision of offenders in the community requires a balancing act that cannot be too closely watched. Providing the right amount of oversight with the right amount of freedom can be a challenge fraught with risk. Using electronic means to supervise offender caseloads can mean making decisions with better scientific data, fewer errors and better outcomes for case managers with big caseloads and dwindling budgets. 
 

The following are some of the leading tools on the market that help those managing pretrial, probation, and parole cases.

 

Data Entry Only Once
 

While some justice systems have a different computer system for each step of the process—court management, jail and parole, for instance—Odyssey from Tyler Technologies is a “party-based system, meaning the data is entered once and no matter where the individual is a single entity is maintained throughout the justice system,” says Bob Kolysher, product owner. The parole officer doesn’t have to go to the jail and fax a stack of papers. “The end-to-end integration saves time and eliminates errors.”
 

Another example of streamlining the workflow comes within the pretrial module, says Kolysher. The pretrial officer can view the case in the workflow queue, identify the work he/she needs to do, view the initial assessments and enter the recommendations online and then direct the case to staff that will handle the next step. “It’s a beautiful flow of electronic information,” he says, it connects all the proper staff as the case moves forward. Often staff work in separate offices to do the jail assessment and the paperwork had to be moved from building to building. With use of the caseload management system all that is eliminated, he notes.
 

Sixty to 120 people are supervised in a typical caseload, explains Kevin Griffin, senior vice president, connectrex corp. They all have to follow specific—and different—conditions. For that reason, he says, a standard contact management system or a CRM (customer relationship management) system is not well-suited. On the other hand, the case management system developed by connectrex is a “core supervision” tool, not directed at the court or the DA, but a tool aimed at probation, parole, pretrial and treatment officers.
 

Monitor, as it’s called, keeps track of appointments, meeting requirements, officer alerts, treatment resources, arrest alerts, apology letters—information that can pose a key supervision challenge if missing. It also has validated assessment tools built in the application. In fact the company served San Mateo County in this capacity from 1984 to 2000, tracking offenders on a day-to-day basis, starting the first treatment court and reducing failure to appear rates, according to Griffin. Overall through this system, “1.5 million offender clients have been supervised.”
 

While most on the supervision continuum are using some sort of electronic contact management system even if it's home grown, or off the shelf like Excel, he says, “they are slowly realizing the need to move up to more robust system.“
 

The advantage to using systems meant to target supervision is that they adapt to meet the latest trends in the industry, e.g., tech notifications like text reminder messages to probationers or parolees, that others just may not incorporate. While the Monitor CMS provides  the cost benefit of working “out of the box,” it also provides “gap analysis” by connectrex consultants to customize the system to meet the users need within the application, Griffin notes.

 

Evidence-based decision making
 

Another program JWorks by CourtView can seamlessly integrate evidence-based practice (EBP) and risk-need-responsivity (RNR) tools with its case management solutions, including the COMPAS risk/needs assessment and monitoring solution, used by courts and corrections throughout the United States.

In addition, whether gathering information during pre-sentence investigation (PSI), or as a snapshot of family, substance abuse, housing, employment, criminal activity, or other history for sentencing and supervision, the Northpointe Suite solutions used with JWorks provides a scientifically proven foundation for assessing and tracking offender risks and needs—and the appropriate course of action—for evidence-based decision making.
 

While there are hurdles to overcome in having practitioners use evidence based tools for their assessments, says Sue Humphreys, director of industry solutions with CourtView Justice Solutions, “we are seeing a fair amount of specialty courts looking for a solution to determine the eligibility part of program.” 
 

Pretrial officers must analyze risk, including offender behaviors and responses to determine if they will respond to specialty court community treatment. Using assessment tools can help because they are a scientific, tried and true methodology based on decades of research, she says. “Our observation is there is very little of that; [however] they are starting to tune into it—and the movement of specialty courts is helping to drive it,” she says. “They have state or local requirements have to make pretty informed decision to choose who will go into that program.”
 

Risk assessment tools are objective. It lessens that discretion, courts might tend to balk at, she says. “The thinking that ‘I’m a judge and would like to use discretion,’ and of course they can,” she’s quick to point out. These are “not to replace professional judgment but to render the best possible data, to have the scientific backing.” 
 

Caseload Explorer from Automon, LLC is also a comprehensive case management system. It is specific to probation, pretrial (a hot topic of late), and some overlap into parole, says Scot Asher, vice president, Sales & Business Development. This “offender-centric” software tracks any piece of data, demographic information like associates, parents’ associates, where they work, and other critical data, gathering it from integration from the court system. “It's a balance of who they are, and at end of day how do we best supervise them?” he continues. 
 

It works with add-on tools like CE Assessments and CE Analytics that are tightly integrated in the cloud, Asher notes.  In September, the mobile-based app will be released in seven pilot counties. The officer can have entire app at his fingertips—pictures, pertinent addresses, Google maps, an alternate address, multiple phones, any warnings, alerts, etc. It will also have built-in assessments, of which their library contains 23. Working in it, the officer will be able to enter information, take a picture and it can all be sent back to the CMS.  

Mobile functionality is huge, says Asher. A lot is driven by officer safety.  But pushing that much data and bringing so much functionality to the field can be incredibly expensive, he adds. To overcome that “our philosophy is to keep it as simple as possible—allowing officers to use iOS or android-based tablets or smartphones, and to create cloud-based applications that can run on their own.” Data that is populating their screens has full integration from Caseload Explorer, and any notes in case notes is written back to CE. It allows the field officer record caseload notes in the field and synch it back.