BJA FY 14 Smart Supervision: Reducing Prison Populations, Saving Money, and Creating Safer Communities

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At yearend 2012, an estimated 4,781,300 adults were under supervision in the community either on probation or parole—the equivalent of about 1 out of every 50 adults in the United States. Many people on supervision do not successfully complete their community supervision.1 According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), 15 percent of probationers who left supervised status in 2012 were incarcerated for a new offense or due to revocation of their current probation sentence. Twenty-five percent of exits from parole were due to incarceration for a new offense or parole revocation. State-level data from BJA’s Justice Reinvestment Initiative indicate that in some states, probation and parole revocations account for up to 65 percent of prison and jail admissions annually. These failure rates are a key reason prison populations remain high.The FY 2014 Smart Supervision Program (SSP) seeks to improve probation and parole success rates, which would in turn improve public safety, reduce admissions to prisons and jails, and save taxpayer dollars. Funds can be used to implement evidence-based supervision strategies and to innovate new strategies to improve outcomes for supervisees. This program is funded under the Second Chance Act appropriation. Signed into law on April 9, 2008, the Second Chance Act (P.L. 110-199) was designed to improve outcomes for people returning to communities from prisons and jails. This first-of-its-kind legislation authorizes federal grants to government agencies and nonprofit organizations to provide employment assistance, substance abuse treatment, housing, family programming, mentoring, victims support, and other services that can help reduce recidivism.

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