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Thesis (Ed.D.)--Teachers College, Columbia University, 1993. / Typescript; issued also on microfilm. Sponsor: Franceska B. Smith. Dissertation Committee: Matthias Finger. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 251-263).

This study examines the efficacy of treatment and likelihood of success while on probation among a sample of 193 people who recently were under community supervision in Illinois. Less than one-third of the probationers participated in any form of treatment or services. However, treatment was more likely to be given to drug offenders and probationers who were either married or educated at high school or higher levels. In contrast to the low level of treatment overall, the subjects in this study achieved a high level of success while serving sentences of community corrections. Whether absconding from the jurisdiction, getting a technical violation of their supervision, or a new arrest for a crime, only one-fifth of the subjects failed. Failure was more apt to occur for those with a prior arrest history, less serious offenses, and among unmarried probationers. This study also examined the effectiveness of an assessment instrument to classify risk of reoffending and needs for treatment. The instrument was of low utility, the greatest use being able to distinguish failure between low and medium-risk groups of offenders.

Master of Arts / Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work / Kevin Steinmetz / At year end 2016 over 3.7 million Americans were under probationary supervision. In response to institutional overcrowding, the U.S. has been increasingly reliant on community corrections. Though there has been extensive research into various aspects of the criminal justice system, the area of community corrections, specifically probation, has seen relatively little scrutiny. Through quantitative analysis of probationary data, this study examined a Midwestern population of closed probationary cases. Through a framework of intersectionality, various intersectional identities are examined for likelihood of failure. Focusing on the prevalence of negative outcomes for not only racial and ethnic minorities, but also intersections of race, ethnicity, and gender. Utilizing logistic regression analysis, each model examines race, ethnicity, and sex against probation failure. After an initial baseline model, intersections of race/ethnicity were run. Using probation success as a control outcome in each of the models. Across all models, race and ethnicity were found to be significantly and positively associated with probation failure. Additionally, standardized coefficients indicate Black and Black/Hispanic categories to represent strong effect on negative probation outcome. Of note, sex though unreliable in numerous models, was found only to be a significant and strong predictor in the model examining Black probationers. Possible explanations, study limitation, future research, and policy implication are offered in the discussion and conclusion section.

Desistance from crime can generally be considered to constitute a transition from a state of offending to one of non-offending, along with the underlying processes that support this transition. While the available literature has examined the impact of social structures such as employment, relationships and family formation on desistance transitions, the impact of involvement in perhaps less influential social structures has been largely overlooked. Not only this but, with a few notable exceptions (for instance Barry, 2010a), there is a shortage of literature surrounding the impact of this transitional phase itself, and the limiting factors associated with it, on to the ability for ex-offenders to maintain desistance. If, as is often the case for young adults, desistance transitions are undertaken alongside numerous other transitions (such as the transition into adulthood and between youth and adult criminal justice provisions), how do ex-offenders negotiate all of these transitions in their early stages and how do wider structural changes impact upon behaviours being attempted within this multiple liminality? Through the use of 18 double narrative interviews with probationers on an Intensive Community Order, 10 semi structured interviews with probation staff, 6 months of observations and the collection of probationer “End Data”, the current research was able to understand the ways in which initial desistance transitions are maintained by probationers within the context of a probation service which was transitioning around them. It was found that the disruption to probation supervision (which was deemed to be a structural source of support outside the “big structures” evidenced in the literature), impacted upon the rhythms and routines of probationers in the sample, challenging their ontological security and fledgling pro-social identities developed in this transitional state.

The outputs presented in part submission of a PhD by publication represent the body of my published work over the past ten years. They cover policy, practice and legislative developments during both the New Labour and Coalition Governments that have ultimately led to the demise of the Probation Service as a unified public sector organisation. Two main themes are evident in my writing. The first is a critique of how an ideological commitment to economic neo-liberalism and accompanying social conservatism has shaped contemporary probation policy and public sector provision more generally. The second significant strand has been an exploration of the impact of these developments on the occupational culture and working practices of probation work.

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Many colleges have devoted institutional resources to retention initiatives, particularly those targeting students who have been placed on academic probation, but assessment of academic enhancement courses for students on academic probation has generally been limited to correlational studies in which the entire intervention serves as the independent variable. This study, guided by that of Kivlighan et al. (2018), applied knowledge of therapeutic factors related to positive outcomes in group psychotherapy to academic enhancement seminars in order to determine whether the same factors might also be associated with positive outcomes, as measured by semester grade point average (GPA) and participants’ reported college self-efficacy and perception of the college environment. Ratings of therapeutic factors from 145 first-year college students enrolled in 11 sections of an academic enhancement seminar were modeled as predictors of change in participants’ grade-point average (GPA), college self-efficacy, and perception of the college environment. We did not find an association between any of the therapeutic factors and the outcome variables. The intraclass correlation (ICC) coefficient (ρ) for post-intervention semester GPA was 0.09 (p = .021), meaning 9% of the variance in adjusted post-intervention GPA was accounted for by a student’s course section. Further research is needed to understand differences in sections that contributed to this.

Supervision of offenders in the community remains a critical component of the correctional processes in the United States. With almost six million offenders under correctional supervision in the community, there has been relatively little attention and few resources devoted to the style and quality of supervision received by these offenders. As a result of the lack of research regarding the style of probation and parole supervision, there is a need to identify and quantify styles of casework and surveillance supervision. This article describes a research project that identifies the key functions of parole and probation officers, reports self- and peer-rating on a casework to surveillance continuum, and establishes an instrument that can be used to create baseline information regarding how probation and parole officers spend their time, and whether the functions officers perform are casework, surveillance, or a balance of the two.

Each year, hundreds of thousands of youth move through juvenile justice systems in the United States, and the number of female offenders is increasing. At the probation level, there appears to be a lack of services, such as mentoring, mental health services, sex education, and counseling, to meet the gender-specific needs of female juvenile delinquents in rural settings. The purpose of this study was to discover county probation officers' perceptions of girls' needs and the officers' decision-making processes related to recommending services. This case study was based on feminist criminology theory. The research questions sought to learn how probation officers working with female juvenile offenders in a rural county describe their roles in the supervision process and how they decide which gender-specific services are most appropriate. Three probation officers in a rural jurisdiction in a northeastern state were interviewed, and the responses were coded and analyzed using thematic content analysis. Findings indicated that the officers neither viewed girls differently nor felt the need to treat the genders differently, even though their responses revealed that female youth are more often subject to truancy, promiscuity, and running away than male youth. The primary recommendation resulting from the study is to implement gender-responsive programs to meet the diverse needs of delinquent girls. Such programs would offer female youth more guidance and rehabilitation, potentially reducing future offending. This study has implications for positive social change in informing those serving in the youth criminal justice field, and families involved in the system, about the gap in understanding and implementing gender-specific strategies to meet the needs of rural female youth in conflict with the law.