Banking Low Risk Offenders: Is it a good investment

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Banking Low Risk Offenders Is it a good
investment?

• Kelly Dedel Johnson, Ph.D.
• The Institute on Crime, Justice and Corrections
• at The George Washington University
• 1531 SE Belmont Street Portland, OR 97214
• [phone]

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Research Questions

• Was the redesign implemented as planned?
• Use of risk assessment instrument
• Use of casebank for low-risk generic and
• specialized for medium- and high-risk
• Contact standards
• Use of sanctions

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Research Questions

• Does the new system of supervising offenders
  appear to be safe?
• Recidivism by supervision level
• Characteristics related to recidivism

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Sample Sizes, 1995 through 2000
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Actual Supervision Level
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Initial Caseload Assignments
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Caseload and Supervision Level
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Contact Standards

• Indication of Problems
• Number of contacts across all supervision levels
  greatly exceeded requirements
• Default settings in contact module of ISIS
• Intensity of contact does appear to increase as
  the supervision level increases.

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Sanctions

• Paralleled findings of Salvo (2000)
• Despite mission to decrease reliance on custodial
  sanctions, jail and jail plus program are
  most prevalent types
• In one-third of sanction events, full sanction is
  never actually served

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Overall Recidivism Rates

• Approximately one-third are rearrested within 12
  months
• 12-month rearrest rate is decreasing
• No discernible suppression effect

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Recidivism by Actual Supervision Level
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Characteristics Related to Recidivism

• Generic or Abscond
• Higher Risk
• Parole Post-Prison
• Prior Arrest
• Previous Sanction

• Male
• Black or Native American
• Younger (mitigated)

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Critical Finding Overrides

• Override rate 31.9 (1998) and 39.4 (2000)
• (1998) 14.8 UP 17.1 DOWN
• (2000) 16.4 UP 22.9 DOWN
• Calculated has stronger overall predictive
  relationship to recidivism
• Recidivism rates of overridden offenders were
  more similar to offenders in level suggested by
  calculated score

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Recidivism by Calculated Supervision Level
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Consequences of Overrides

• Mask actual differences in failure rates among
  supervision levels
• Placement of lower risk offenders in higher
  supervision levels is contrary to premise of
  redesign

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Critical Finding Generic v. Specialized

• Relative efficacy of generic and specialized
  caseloads for medium- and high-risk offenders
• Differences in offense type
• Specialized more person and DUI
• Generic more property and drug
• Differences in gender
• Specialized more women

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Comparison of Specialized v. Generic
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Critical Finding Generic v. Specialized

• When demographics and legal characteristics were
  controlled, no significant difference in the
  performance of medium- and high-risk offenders on
  specialized or generic caseloads
• What makes Specialized special?

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Next Steps

• Re-validate Risk Assessment Instrument
• Reason for and impact of high rates of overrides
• Possible over-classification of women

• Qualitative assessment of contacts, assessment of
  needs, and treatment programs to improve
  recidivism rates for medium- and high-risk
  offenders
• Fix ISIS problems
• Focus on what makes Specialized special