Promising Strategies in Probation and Parole / E. Kim Nelson and Others.

This report is designed to aid probation and parole administrators, planners, program operators, and line staff by highlighting programs and practices throughout the country which appear to have special promise. The scarcity of evaluative data and the limitations inherent in a study of this kind forced heavy reliance on subjective assessments in the selection of programs for inclusion in the report and in the description of those programs. The programs and practices discussed represent a selection which the authors view as especially interesting and worthy of possible emulation elsewhere. The report discusses issues facing community corrections today; identifies promising strategies in the areas of probation intake, diversion or deferred prosecution, parole intake, case classification, residential services, field supervision, and the use of paraprofessionals and volunteers; examines methods used in programs which capitalize on the mobilization and use of community resources; details methods of organizing and delivering services, developing accountability, and measuring performance, with an emphasis on the organizational characteristics of successful agency programs; describes four comprehensive agency programs which seemed of particular interest to both survey respondents and project staff; summarizes the major prescriptive themes developed throughout the report; and comments upon possible futures of community corrections. (Author)

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