Justice Issues: Corrections

Bureau of Justice Assistance - Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice - Solutions for Safer Communities

Public Safety Officers' Benefits Program

Corrections

Supervising offenders in the community and preparing offenders for their return to their communities are critical to protecting public safety. Community supervision officers must balance the time required to manage growing caseloads and their desire to provide offenders with the services they need to become law abiding citizens. At the same time, supervision officers increasingly are concerned with their own safety as they find themselves more in the field and less in the office.

Around the country, state and local probation and parole officials are testing new ways to meet these challenges. One of the most exciting ideas is that of building partnerships between law enforcement and community corrections. These partnerships not only increase the safety of supervision officers, but offer more services and better results than correctional institutions, and at a much lower cost. In another increasingly popular and effective approach, reentry programs provide a broad range of services for offenders while ensuring accountability.

BJA promotes police-community corrections partnerships that provide a higher level of supervision and accountability.
BJA supports offender reentry programs that provide the training, treatment, and supervision that offenders need when they reenter our communities.
BJA supports rural probation and parole officers through its Distance Learning Methods for Training of Rural Probation & Parole Officers initiative. The American Probation and Parole Association (APPA), with support from BJA, has developed a series of training programs using audio teleconferences, web casts, and CDs for rural and other training-challenged probation and parole officers. Probation and parole agencies, constrained by limited training budgets, find it difficult to provide the training that would allow for the incorporation of evidence-based practices. APPA, utilizing distance learning methods (i.e., audio teleconferences, web casts, and CDs) and expert trainers, sponsored a series of trainings on the following subjects: Basic Safety for Probation and Parole Officers, Intimate Partner Domestic Violence, Clandestine Methamphetamine Laboratories, Addressing Staff Sexual Misconduct, and 11 other subjects. Over 5,000 probation and parole officers have participated in the live audio teleconferences. .
We will develop guidance materials and other information for community corrections officers and administrators who wish to replicate community correctional programs.
BJA will work with professionals to share promising strategies and partnerships that help offenders with mental health issues.
BJA will provide information on promising practices and creative solutions in community-based treatment options.
Other community corrections initiatives include: Tribal Court Community Supervision, Sex Offender Housing Issues, Financial Obligations, Family-Based Case Management, Correctional Options, Gang Member Reentry, Advancing Community Corrections Supervision, and Reentry of Meth-Addicted Offenders.

Performance measurement of correctional facilities, programs, and services has long been a problem for correctional administrators due to the lack of any national system for the collection, management, or sharing of information across jurisdictions. With support from BJA, the Association of State Correctional Administrators is establishing a Performance-Based Measures System (PBMS) that will collect, manage, and share accurate data nationwide utilizing a secure management information system. BJA grant funds have been applied toward developing the PBMS system, which has been piloted in six states to measure public safety, institutional safety, mental health and substance abuse, and offender profile/contextual data.

BJA also works closely with corectional administrators in a number of other ways, such as

Assisting with a national clearinghouse of information.
Addressing workforce issues.
Addressing correctional intelligence and information sharing issues.
Collaborating with substance abuse and mental health leaders.

The corrections community not only works to keep criminals off our streets, but also to prepare offenders for their return to their communities. Correctional agencies know that they must do their best to give inmates opportunities to develop life and work skills that will help their return be successful. Increasingly, correctional facilities are using treatment, work, education, and mental health programs to build these skills.

At BJA, we believe that this direction is the only way to increase the chance that the people who once preyed on our communities can return to them without causing further harm. As a result, we will continue to support reentry services in the criminal justice system by providing funding and assistance to correctional programs that want to test alternatives to traditional incarceration programs.

BJA supports reentry programs that seek to provide the needed training, treatment, and supervision offenders need to reenter their communities and live law abiding lives.
BJA administers the Comprehensive Approaches to Sex Offender Management (CASOM) Discretionary Grant Program to help jurisdictions effectively manage sex offenders in the community.

BJA works with national correctional associations and organizations to develop and conduct regional policy and training forums for correctional staff and community leaders.
BJA administers the Prison Industry Enhancement Certification Program. Through the program, which lifts restrictions on prisoner made goods for certified state correctional agencies, prisoners acquire marketable skills that help them find meaningful employment after their release.
Other corrections-related projects include Developing a Risk Need Assessment for Specialized Populations, Corrections Resaponse to Pandemic, and Jail Issues.

Related Publications/Information
Implementing the Family Support Approach for Community Supervision
Gang Member Reentry Assistance Project
Jail Leaders Speak: Current and Future Challenges to Jail Administration and Operations (Report, Appendices, or White Papers)
Hot Topic of Discussion in Sex Offender Management
Prison Industry Enhancement Certification Program
Resources for Enhancing Sex Offender Management Strategies