Backed by Data and Community Input, Counties Work Toward Increasing Successful Exits from Probation

By Victoria Lawson, Research Project Director

People walking across a bridge in Minneapolis, Ramsey County, Minnesota.

The counties selected for Phase II of the Reducing Revocations Challenge have employed a number of strategies to reduce the number of people being incarcerated for violating their terms of probation. Here are the site’s updates.

There has been growing agreement among practitioners, policymakers, and the general public that there are far too many people under probation supervision in the United States. Over the past few decades, the number of people on supervision has skyrocketed, with a 226-percent increase from 1.34 million in 1980 to 4.39 million in 2019—more than two thirds of whom are on probation (rather than parole).[1] These numbers are particularly alarming in light of the poor success rates for people on probation: more than a quarter of probation exits in 2019 were classified as unsuccessful, and the majority of those ended in incarceration.

This means that as mass incarceration reaches crisis levels in counties and states across the country, community supervision is emerging as a major driver. Almost half (45 percent) of admissions to jail and prison are due to a probation or parole violation, with probation violations alone accounting for roughly one in four of all admissions (23 percent). Incarcerating people for violating the terms of their supervision costs taxpayers more than $9.8 billion each year, in addition to the myriad negative effects of incarceration on impacted individuals and their families. Moreover, the known racial and ethnic disparities in violation rates mean that violations contribute to the already alarming disparities in incarceration rates. 

It was against this backdrop that we launched the Reducing Revocations Challenge (RRC) in 2019, with support from Arnold Ventures. The RRC is a national initiative that aims to increase success on probation through the identification, piloting, and testing of promising strategies grounded in a robust analysis and understanding of why revocations occur. In the first phase of the initiative, action research teams (ARTs) consisting of a local probation department and research partner in 10 jurisdictions conducted in-depth research to investigate the local drivers of revocations and then use what they learned to propose solutions (see our brief here). In the second phase, a subset of ARTs (Monroe County, IN; Pima County, AZ; Ramsey County, MN; and Santa Cruz County, CA) received additional funding to implement their proposed strategies.

Over the course of Phase II, we have seen innovative and exciting work unfold in the counties. These sites have recently released policy briefs describing that work. Read more in their individual briefs, but here are some highlights:

  • Monroe County focused on increasing fidelity of probation best practices through sustained and tailored officer trainings, with the goal of maximizing successful relationships between officers and their clients. Additionally, they succeeded in revising their conditions of probation to be fewer in number and more positive in tone. Monroe also continues to implement strategies to increase the use of positive incentives for those on probation and their officers. 

  • Pima County developed a probation warrant resolution program that allows clients who fail to maintain contact the opportunity to reengage without serving jail time.  Additionally, they developed new policies to subsidize drug tests for those who qualify and limit the number of tests administered each month, greatly reducing the financial and time burden for clients. Pima also developed a community advisory board to gain more insight and perspectives from both community service providers and those with lived experience to inform and enhance their RRC strategies. 

  • Ramsey County pursued a community-focused approach to implementing their Phase II RRC strategies. This included heavy and thoughtful recruitment efforts to ensure there were community members and those with lived experience on each of their strategy workgroups, with an emphasis on shared community power in decision making. This approach has led to the development of a peer navigator role as well as recommendations for tailoring and reducing standard conditions of probation and reducing the footprint of probation more broadly. Ramsey and its research partner, the Robina Institute, also took a deeper dive into reasons for absconding, a significant driver of revocations in the county.

  • Santa Cruz County sought to transform organizational culture to ensure that all policies and practices were aligned with an assistance-oriented supervision approach, also called a coaching model. This approach included an inclusive codesign process and a retreat with system partners and adults on probation to develop a set of policy and practice recommendations to increase client success and reduce revocations. Santa Cruz also implemented an incentive-based case management pilot for people with substance use terms of probation to promote trusting relationships with probation officers, in turn increasing reporting and engagement in treatment services.


[1] Note that we use 2019 data given the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the probation population and probation practices in 2020.

Photo by weston m on Unsplash

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