How Three States Changed Their Supervision Practices During the Pandemic

December 21, 2021

COVID-19 created a new sense of urgency for probation and parole programs to meet their intended goal—keeping people out of prison. In part, because of this urgency, the number of people admitted to prison due to supervision violations declined nationwide from 2019 to 2020.

In September 2021, The Council of State Governments Justice (CSG) Center released its latest 50-state analysis on the impact of supervision violations on prison populations. More Community, Less Confinement, a project conducted in partnership with the Correctional Leaders Association and Arnold Ventures, outlined the ways that these violations changed prior to and during the pandemic.

Now, as a follow up to this data report, the CSG Justice Center is releasing three new videos highlighting some of the policy and programming changes community supervision agencies in Connecticut, Georgia, and Kansas made in response to the threat of COVID-19. Each video briefly details the challenges the states were facing and the changes they think should be carried forward to continue meeting their intended goal safely.

Watch the videos below.

We now screen all of our sentenced probation clients for Medicaid in collaboration with the Connecticut Department of Social Services with the goal of having as many people as possible have health insurance.
Thomas Canny
Chief Probation Officer, State of Connecticut
More Community, Less Confinement: Spotlight on Connecticut
In field interaction, our officers spent an average of 6 minutes with each person on community supervision … When we moved to video interaction, the average time of engagement grew to 23 minutes—incredible difference.
Michael Nail
Commissioner, Georgia Department of Community Supervision
More Community, Less Confinement: Spotlight on Georgia
We had been averaging about 110 condition violations per month down to 11 in 2020 and 26 in 2021.
Hope Cooper
Deputy Secretary, Kansas Department of Corrections
More Community, Less Confinement: Spotlight on Kansas

To read the full analysis, visit More Community, Less Confinement. A replay of the expert panel discussion held on September 1, 2021, can also be found here.

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