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How Little Supervision Can We Have?

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Evangeline Lopoo shows that probation and parole impact millions, but research questions their effectiveness. Downsizing or abolition could be considered.

Image courtesy of interviewee. January 12, 2024

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This video video is a detailed discussion about the supervision system in the United States, particularly focusing on probation and parole. It begins by noting the significant number of people—about 4 million—under supervision, while highlighting the system's minimal academic and political scrutiny. The authors aim to critically examine the original purposes of probation and parole, finding they fail to fulfill their intended rehabilitative roles.

The paper discusses different jurisdictions that have attempted to downsize their supervision populations, notably California and New York City. In California, a series of legal reforms and advocacy efforts motivated by federal oversight led to a significant reduction in the prison population and related supervision without an increase in crime rates. Changes included lowering felony charges to misdemeanors and reinvesting savings into community-based alternatives that aid in rehabilitation.

In New York City, the change was driven more by internal agency dynamics rather than federal mandates, leading to innovative practices like using kiosks for check-ins that reduced the queues at probation offices.

The authors argue that the current supervision system often entraps individuals in a vicious cycle that does not aid rehabilitation and can lead to increased incarceration rates instead of reducing them. They suggest exploring abolishing or substantially downsizing such systems based on empirical evidence showing that supervision does not provide public safety or rehabilitation.

This video video concludes with recommendations for reforming the system, stressing the need to reduce monetary sanctions and make supervision less onerous while promoting community-based alternatives that do not carry the same punitive connotations. Through these reforms, the authors believe a more compassionate and effective approach to community safety and rehabilitation can be achieved.

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The context of the re review is basically, you know,

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supervision, and I use the term supervision

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to encompass both probation and parole.

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Um, in the United States have kind of an outsized effect on,

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on, on social life.

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Um, it's a very large institution.

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Um, it, at the time of the writing of the article,

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about 4 million people were

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under supervision in the United States.

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Um, and so, you know, for all of the, just the massive scope

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of the system, it receives a lot of,

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or very little academic attention

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as well as political attention.

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And, my co-authors

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and I really set out to talk more in depth about the

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original intent of supervision, how probation

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and parole originated,

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and if they're actually serving those same functions

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in contemporary life.

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Um, our, our findings, obviously,

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which I can get into in more depth,

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throughout our interview, is that no,

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it doesn't serve it's intended purpose.

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Um, but we really wanted to offer our audience, a way

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to think critically about what supervision is actually doing

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and what it's supposed to be doing.

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Um, and then also provide some examples of,

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jurisdictions that have attempted

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to downsize their supervision populations

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through various means

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and its effects on things like, crime

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and incarceration rates.

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Um, and show that in a way,

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reducing the size and scope

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of supervision populations doesn't actually increase crime,

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or, and it doesn't,

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having more people on supervision doesn't actually reduce

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our reliance on the carceral state either.

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It doesn't reduce the number of people incarcerated.

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And so our conclusions were that, you know, this,

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these systems are actually not,

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serving any real purpose that's helpful.

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Um, and as a consequence, we should really,

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seriously think about, downsizing them

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and then also experimenting with abolition in a very,

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systematic and meticulous way.

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Um, one way that is like very,

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well resourced rather than just kind of getting rid

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of a system without real sub substantive replacements.

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Um, and that, that's kind of the gist of, of the paper.

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I can talk more in depth about that as well.

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As I said, we kind of set out

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to do several things with the paper.

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And as a consequence, like the,

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the review piece is actually pretty ambitious.

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Um, we use a lot of, empirical evidence.

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It's, you know, we use as literature review,

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but then as well, we also kind

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of document these two case studies that I just spoke about.

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Um, one of which my co-author was, was kind

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of deeply enmeshed in the real work of doing,

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VIN Vincent Aldi, another author on the paper.

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He has been kind of a lifetime bureaucrat.

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He says that, with all of the warmth that that,

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that brings out for him.

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And he has really thought about

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changing systems from the inside out.

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And so, particularly with New York City, you know,

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he has spent a lot of time, moving

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through distant different,

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government agencies in New York.

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He ran the probation, department for a long time as well

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as running, for, for an interim period.

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He ran the Department of Corrections,

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where Rikers Island, is housed under.

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And so, and as well as he's done

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so much advocacy work in the city.

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So, we use that case example as well

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as another case example from California,

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which Vinny has also done a lot of work in California.

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Um, and so we have this really interesting blend

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of using kind of, preexisting empirical evidence

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as well as some historical literature about the origins

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of probation and parole, in addition

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to using firsthand accounts of what it was like moving

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through these systems and attempting

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to reform these systems.

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Um, while working in California

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and New York City in the US context supervision,

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embodies two things, probation and parole.

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Um, probation is thought of

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as an alternative to incarceration.

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So folks that might, who have been convicted of a crime

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and might be incarcerated, instead, they're able to

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stay in community,

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which is why it's also deemed community supervision.

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Um, and they have quite a few, conditions

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that are put on their freedom.

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So basically folks are saying you don't have to go

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to prison, but you have these sets of rules

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that you have to abide by.

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Um, these conditions are actually pretty extensive,

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and they often don't have anything to do

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with an individual's crime.

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Um, so for example, a lot of times folks cannot associate

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with family members if they have a criminal record.

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Um, they have a very, strict curfew, which means

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that they can't be outdoors past

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8:00 PM they have to be in their houses.

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Um, there's very frequent check-in calls

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where folks will just randomly call and see if you're home.

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Um, there's just like a whole host of things that in a lot

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of contexts, like I just said,

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don't actually have anything to do with the person's,

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conviction, what they've been found, convicted of.

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And as a consequence, a lot of people end up rule breaking.

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So they end up violating these, conditions, many

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of which are called technical conditions of probation.

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Um, as a consequence, a lot

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of people end up being revocated, which means that folks,

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when they, when they violate, when they break the rules,

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when they don't meet these conditions, they are sentenced

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to some additional sanction,

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which normally ends up being time in jail or prison.

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Um, so it really depends.

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There's a lot of discretion thinking about how people are,

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being sentenced upon revocation in the United States,

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and each state and jurisdiction is very different.

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Um, so I'll just kind of in an umbrella way say that,

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a lot of times people end up starting on probation

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and ending up in jail,

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and then parole functions very similarly,

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but it's tacked on to the end of a prison stay.

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So parole is an attempt to, allow

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for more indeterminate sentencing. So

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If someone's sentenced to, you know, 10 years,

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but they can only serve five years

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and do good time, then they're able to

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to leave the prison system early.

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Um, but they do have this kind

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of attendance supervision tacked on to the end of that.

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So it really is a substitute

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for serving a full prison sentence, their full, amount

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of time that they were convicted

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and, and charged with serving.

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Um, and the conditions are very similar, right?

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You, you, it's still, very intensive.

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There's a lot of restrictions of freedoms.

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It's very easy to, do things like miss a probation

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or parole appointment or stay in pro like sit in the

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probation or parole office all day

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and miss your shift at work, and then you don't have a job.

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And then, you know, your officer will ask,

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okay, well, are you employed?

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And then you have to say no

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because you just lost your job 'cause you were sitting in the office.

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And, then you get revocated.

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Like, it's this very kind of, malicious,

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vicious cycle, that people end up being, kind

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of sucked into.

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And so that's what I mean when I say probation and parole.

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Um, in the United States, there's a little bit

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of technicalities there where various jurisdictions will

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kind of call, parole, actually probation

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and vice, vice versa.

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But that's kind of the gist of it.

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Um, in regard to the, the case studies that I mentioned

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with California and New York, the way

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that the downsizing operates is actually pretty

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different in each jurisdiction.

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I would say California is more, they face a lot

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of external pressure, particularly from the federal

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government and advocates

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to reduce their carceral population.

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And so as a consequence, they ended up having,

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they were under consent decree,

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after, so some, some Supreme Court rulings,

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which basically ruled that, it was the,

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the prison population in California.

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The prisons were far too. Um, they're far over capacity.

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They were just filled with people.

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And, as a consequence,

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like the conditions in there were horrific and inhumane.

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And basically the federal government got involved

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and said, y'all have to reduce the size

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of your incarcerated population.

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This led to a lot of different, pieces

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of legislation being passed, one of which meant that a lot

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of, previously offenses previously qualified

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as felonies were then changed to misdemeanor offenses,

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which means that they could be,

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that the sentences were different, right?

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So sentences would then be, time and jail

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or county level probation instead of state incarceration

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for years rather than, you know, days or months in jail.

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And then, a much longer term,

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more intensive probation stay.

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So this in

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and of itself reduced the state probation population.

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It also reduced the, the tivity of the probation experience

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for folks who are now under county

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as opposed to state probation.

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Um, in addition to that, there was a number

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of different advocacy efforts at the same time where

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whereby people really wanted to reinvest some of the money

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that California was saving from

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reducing their prison system.

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Um, 'cause as I'm sure y'all know,

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the prison system's very, very expensive

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and taxpayers pay a lot to incarcerate folks.

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And so they were saying, you know, we're having all

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of these reductions in the cost of incarcerating people,

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which is great, but we also wanna reinvest this money into

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meaningful community-based alternatives, things

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that will help people thrive in their own communities

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and avoid incarceration in the first place.

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So we saw in kind these kinds

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of two things happening at the same time

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where legislation was kind of changing, the sentencing

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that was happening for folks that were moving

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through the system, and then this fortification

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of social supports that would prevent, preemptively,

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avoid help people preemptively avoid system

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contact in the first place.

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And you see massive reductions in the supervision population

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in California and the incarcerated population in California.

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And you also see in kind reductions in the crime rate,

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a lot of people worry that if you take people off serious

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supervision, that the crime rate will go

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up for obvious reasons.

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Like they, they worry about that.

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Um, and if supervision was serving its intended purpose,

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then we would see that effect.

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But, we didn't find any evidence that

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that was actually happening.

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In fact, the crime rate was actually declining.

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Um, and then

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to talk a little bit more about the New York City case,

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this is not exactly, this change didn't happen

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as a consequence of federal pressure or advocacy.

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They weren't under judicial review

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or consent decree when they decided to kind of change

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how they were thinking about supervision in, in the city.

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Um, New York City had a number

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of different things happen in tandem, most

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of which were kind

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of cultural changes within state agencies,

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or excuse me, local agencies whereby,

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the leaders of these agencies were thinking differently

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about the role of supervision and how efficacious it was.

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Um, one of these people being my co-author, Vincent Aldi,

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so, you know, Vinny

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and some of his predecessors were thinking really deeply

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about, you know, some of the kind of very,

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like the logistical difficulties people were

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experiencing under supervision.

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Um, for example, probationers were sitting in offices

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for a long time, like I just mentioned earlier.

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They were missing, you know, job interviews.

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They were missing childcare pickup times.

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Like it was really,

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it was actually not helping people reacclimate

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or, rehabilitate in any way.

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Um, and so, so there was a few things that they undertook.

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The first was they experimented

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with having people just check in at a kiosk at the offices,

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where basically you would just answer a series of questions

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that your probation officer used to ask you,

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just face to face.

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Um, the electric kiosk,

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electronic keys kiosk actually worked quite well.

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Um, people would come in, they would check all of the boxes

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and answer the questions and

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the kiosks, and they would leave.

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So they'd have to wait to see the po.

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Um, this was so beneficial

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and prevented all of these la large queues at the offices

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that then folks began, well, more people became eligible

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for electronic kiosk use.

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There was all these things in place

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that the probation department was doing,

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and at the same time, there was a number of other kind of

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legal system mechanisms as well as, resources

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that were being expended, to kind of like in California

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to bolster social supports in the city to avoid,

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criminal legal system contact in the first place.

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So you have a number of things that are happening in tandem,

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including the creation of alternatives to incarceration,

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which, you know, I think a lot of people worry

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that when you talk about ati, that it's just another form

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of, like low grade supervision.

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But in actuality, these were actually really meaningful,

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differences.

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They were really diff they were di really different than

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what people were experiencing under supervision.

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These were community-based, alternatives where,

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you know, they had to apply

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for funding from the mayor's Office

12:58.085 --> 13:00.325
of Criminal Justice when the mayor office, mayor's Office

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of Criminal Justice funded them, they then were able to kind

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of decide what it meant, like what the metrics were

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for success in a way that didn't criminalize people

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that were struggling, to meet these conditions

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or to meet kind of these successes.

13:14.745 --> 13:15.885
And as a consequence,

13:15.945 --> 13:18.845
you see people feel like there's less kind of,

13:19.065 --> 13:21.165
social control and punitively attached

13:21.225 --> 13:23.605
to participation in these alternatives as opposed

13:23.625 --> 13:24.765
to with supervision.

13:25.625 --> 13:27.925
Um, a number of other things happen too.

13:27.985 --> 13:29.605
You've got, a number

13:29.625 --> 13:32.845
of different public defender organizations that are able to,

13:33.025 --> 13:35.965
more adequately defend people in court.

13:36.225 --> 13:39.525
Um, rather than just having a few public defenders,

13:39.525 --> 13:41.725
with oversized caseloads,

13:42.065 --> 13:46.005
and unable to kind of individually cater to people,

13:46.005 --> 13:47.085
who are moving through the system.

13:47.785 --> 13:49.725
You know, there's lots of different things

13:49.725 --> 13:52.285
that are happening and, I know I'm talking

13:52.345 --> 13:54.605
for too long right now, so I'll just end with that.

13:54.705 --> 13:57.165
But, there, there was, there was a lot

13:57.165 --> 14:01.165
of things happening together, that, you know, requires

14:01.345 --> 14:02.605
to be fair, a lot of money

14:03.065 --> 14:07.325
and a lot of people willing to think creatively about some

14:07.325 --> 14:08.765
of these issues, willing to kind

14:08.765 --> 14:10.325
of take chances and experiment.

14:10.665 --> 14:13.125
Um, which I know is not that kind

14:13.125 --> 14:15.045
of climate is not in every jurisdiction.

14:15.345 --> 14:16.525
Um, you know, California

14:16.545 --> 14:19.325
and New York City in particular are very progressive areas,

14:19.985 --> 14:21.405
very well-resourced.

14:21.485 --> 14:24.285
They're not want for money, in when it comes

14:24.285 --> 14:25.405
to the criminal justice system.

14:26.065 --> 14:28.365
Um, and so in these respects, they are unique,

14:28.465 --> 14:30.805
but I think that there's a lot of interesting takeaways

14:31.235 --> 14:33.725
that, others jurisdictions could learn from in the

14:33.725 --> 14:35.525
United States and maybe abroad as well.

14:35.835 --> 14:40.445
This work kind of originated from, a, a book that Vince

14:40.445 --> 14:42.325
and Aldi wrote that actually came out recently

14:42.325 --> 14:45.485
with the New Press, it's called Mass Supervision.

14:45.985 --> 14:48.365
Um, and, and so we had been really thinking about these

14:48.365 --> 14:52.205
issues and, and trying to find evidence of, you know,

14:52.825 --> 14:55.805
can we find anywhere an empirical evaluation that says

14:55.805 --> 14:58.165
that probation does what it's intended to do,

14:58.165 --> 14:59.845
or parole does what it's intended to do.

15:00.465 --> 15:03.405
And what it's intended to do is prevent further crime

15:03.825 --> 15:05.725
and to, you know,

15:05.725 --> 15:07.765
prevent people from also being incarcerated.

15:07.765 --> 15:09.485
It's supposed to be rehabilitative, it's supposed

15:09.685 --> 15:11.725
to help people stay in their, their communities.

15:11.945 --> 15:16.525
Um, and we just found an absolute dearth of information

15:16.715 --> 15:18.805
that proved this as efficacious.

15:19.065 --> 15:20.445
Um, we were shocked.

15:20.945 --> 15:23.485
Uh, I guess that just goes to show that there's a lot

15:23.485 --> 15:26.285
of policy that is not empirically based,

15:26.675 --> 15:28.885
that becomes kind of the norm,

15:28.885 --> 15:30.205
without people even realizing

15:30.205 --> 15:32.405
that actually we don't know if this works or not.

15:32.625 --> 15:35.405
Um, and so that was our key conclusion and,

15:35.425 --> 15:37.245
and we really wanted to convince other people of that.

15:37.305 --> 15:39.645
We also wanted to show that there's other ways of being,

15:39.825 --> 15:42.325
you know, we're kind of entrenched,

15:42.745 --> 15:46.525
in this logic right now where the idea of getting rid

15:46.605 --> 15:47.805
of supervision,

15:47.945 --> 15:50.365
or even downsizing, it might feel ludicrous

15:50.465 --> 15:52.485
or scary or dangerous.

15:52.745 --> 15:55.725
Um, but in actuality it's not providing safety.

15:55.875 --> 15:59.085
It's actually, potentially, you know,

15:59.085 --> 16:00.485
decreasing our level of safety.

16:00.855 --> 16:03.485
Folks are, you know, experiencing supervision

16:03.485 --> 16:05.605
and then they're getting sucked back into the carceral

16:05.605 --> 16:08.045
state, which as we know, you know,

16:08.075 --> 16:09.325
many people hypothesize

16:09.325 --> 16:11.005
as being criminogenic in and of itself.

16:11.265 --> 16:15.445
So the idea that, we need to rely on supervision

16:15.465 --> 16:20.085
to increase our level of safety is, is false.

16:20.565 --> 16:22.045
I think I can just generally say that.

16:22.585 --> 16:23.805
Um, and then some

16:23.925 --> 16:26.365
of the implications from work obviously is, is trying

16:26.365 --> 16:29.445
to show ways of being that don't rely on supervision.

16:29.545 --> 16:32.205
So, California, New York, like I just said, they're,

16:32.205 --> 16:33.525
they're unique cases, they're well

16:33.525 --> 16:34.685
funded, they're progressive.

16:34.985 --> 16:38.725
Um, the kind of advocacy structure infrastructure was there,

16:38.945 --> 16:41.485
but that doesn't mean this can't happen in other places.

16:42.225 --> 16:46.045
Um, there are a number of folks working on these issues

16:46.145 --> 16:49.245
and they, and they have a lot of, kind of suggestions

16:49.435 --> 16:51.205
that are general enough that folks

16:51.795 --> 16:54.445
from any jurisdiction in the United States could implement

16:54.445 --> 16:57.125
them, one of which is to reduce monetary sanctions

16:57.125 --> 16:58.765
that are associated with supervision.

16:59.265 --> 17:01.045
Um, New York City doesn't have them,

17:01.315 --> 17:02.965
most places in California don't have them,

17:03.145 --> 17:05.285
but charge people to be under supervision.

17:05.345 --> 17:06.885
So it's a money maker for the state.

17:07.585 --> 17:12.325
And you know, we argue that that's obviously, in a lot

17:12.325 --> 17:13.485
of ways unconstitutional.

17:13.545 --> 17:17.445
And then in addition to that, it means that, you know, a lot

17:17.465 --> 17:20.045
of other agencies in

17:20.045 --> 17:22.285
that state then rely on criminal justice

17:22.375 --> 17:23.765
money to stay afloat.

17:24.145 --> 17:28.525
And that kind of, economic function is not productive

17:28.585 --> 17:32.205
and it just keeps people within these systems, in a way

17:32.205 --> 17:35.085
that, you know, is hugely detrimental to society.

17:35.185 --> 17:37.205
So that's one thing we'd argue.

17:37.705 --> 17:40.285
We argue that there's steps you can take to downsize

17:40.345 --> 17:43.285
before you experiment with abolition, including things like,

17:43.865 --> 17:47.245
you know, reducing the length of supervision stays.

17:47.465 --> 17:50.925
Um, so, you know, a lot of jurisdictions have moved from,

17:51.385 --> 17:53.965
automatic sentence of three years to probation

17:53.985 --> 17:57.885
to a one year sentence, reducing some of the conditions

17:57.885 --> 18:00.205
that have nothing to do with what your conviction were.

18:00.385 --> 18:03.445
So, you know, if you were not convicted of a drug offense,

18:03.825 --> 18:06.685
you don't need to go do frequent drug testing, as part

18:06.685 --> 18:09.645
of your condition, conditions of supervision.

18:10.185 --> 18:12.285
So things like that, that are very practical

18:12.585 --> 18:14.365
and actually don't cost all that much.

18:14.625 --> 18:16.645
Um, you know, obviously getting rid

18:16.645 --> 18:18.285
of monetary sanctions does cost a lot

18:18.285 --> 18:21.805
and would change kind of the economic, kind of structure

18:21.825 --> 18:24.165
of, of the way these of these states are operating.

18:24.185 --> 18:28.445
But little things like, you know, reducing the scale,

18:29.105 --> 18:30.245
can make a big difference

18:30.425 --> 18:33.365
and actually, might produce more safety

18:33.505 --> 18:36.205
and certainly keep more people out of incarceration

18:36.305 --> 18:38.765
and be a cost saving maneuver for states in the long run.

Reevaluating Probation and Parole Supervision Effectiveness

00:00:00 - The context of the re review is basically, you know, supervision, and I use the term supervision to encompass both probation and parole. in the United States have kind of an outsized effect on, on, on social life. it's a very large institution. it, at the time of the writing of the article, about 4 million people were under supervision in the United States. and so, you know, for all of the, just the massive scope of the system, it receives a lot of, or very little academic attention
00:00:32 - And, my co-authors and I really set out to talk more in depth about the original intent of supervision, how probation and parole originated, and if they're actually serving those same functions in contemporary life. our, our findings, obviously, which I can get into in more depth, throughout our interview, is that no, it doesn't serve it's intended purpose. but we really wanted to offer our audience, a way to think critically about what supervision is actually doing
00:01:03 - and then also provide some examples of, jurisdictions that have attempted to downsize their supervision populations through various means and its effects on things like, crime and incarceration rates. and show that in a way, reducing the size and scope of supervision populations doesn't actually increase crime, or, and it doesn't, having more people on supervision doesn't actually reduce
00:01:35 - It doesn't reduce the number of people incarcerated. And so our conclusions were that, you know, this, these systems are actually not, serving any real purpose that's helpful. and as a consequence, we should really, seriously think about, downsizing them and then also experimenting with abolition in a very, systematic and meticulous way. one way that is like very, well resourced rather than just kind of getting rid
00:02:08 - and that, that's kind of the gist of, of the paper. I can talk more in depth about that as well. As I said, we kind of set out to do several things with the paper. And as a consequence, like the, the review piece is actually pretty ambitious. we use a lot of, empirical evidence. It's, you know, we use as literature review, but then as well, we also kind of document these two case studies that I just spoke about. one of which my co-author was, was kind of deeply enmeshed in the real work of doing,
00:02:40 - He has been kind of a lifetime bureaucrat. He says that, with all of the warmth that that, that brings out for him. And he has really thought about changing systems from the inside out. And so, particularly with New York City, you know, he has spent a lot of time, moving through distant different, government agencies in New York. He ran the probation, department for a long time as well as running, for, for an interim period.

Reforming Probation and Parole in the U.S.

00:03:08 - where Rikers Island, is housed under. And so, and as well as he's done so much advocacy work in the city. So, we use that case example as well as another case example from California, which Vinny has also done a lot of work in California. and so we have this really interesting blend of using kind of, preexisting empirical evidence as well as some historical literature about the origins of probation and parole, in addition
00:03:41 - through these systems and attempting to reform these systems. while working in California and New York City in the US context supervision, embodies two things, probation and parole. probation is thought of as an alternative to incarceration. So folks that might, who have been convicted of a crime and might be incarcerated, instead, they're able to stay in community, which is why it's also deemed community supervision.
00:04:13 - that are put on their freedom. So basically folks are saying you don't have to go to prison, but you have these sets of rules that you have to abide by. these conditions are actually pretty extensive, and they often don't have anything to do with an individual's crime. so for example, a lot of times folks cannot associate with family members if they have a criminal record. they have a very, strict curfew, which means that they can't be outdoors past
00:04:42 - there's very frequent check-in calls where folks will just randomly call and see if you're home. there's just like a whole host of things that in a lot of contexts, like I just said, don't actually have anything to do with the person's, conviction, what they've been found, convicted of. And as a consequence, a lot of people end up rule breaking. So they end up violating these, conditions, many of which are called technical conditions of probation. as a consequence, a lot
00:05:14 - when they, when they violate, when they break the rules, when they don't meet these conditions, they are sentenced to some additional sanction, which normally ends up being time in jail or prison. so it really depends. There's a lot of discretion thinking about how people are, being sentenced upon revocation in the United States, and each state and jurisdiction is very different. so I'll just kind of in an umbrella way say that, a lot of times people end up starting on probation
00:05:44 - and then parole functions very similarly, but it's tacked on to the end of a prison stay. So parole is an attempt to, allow for more indeterminate sentencing. So If someone's sentenced to, you know, 10 years, but they can only serve five years and do good time, then they're able to to leave the prison system early. but they do have this kind of attendance supervision tacked on to the end of that. So it really is a substitute for serving a full prison sentence, their full, amount

Challenges of Probation and Parole Systems

00:06:17 - and, and charged with serving. and the conditions are very similar, right? You, you, it's still, very intensive. There's a lot of restrictions of freedoms. It's very easy to, do things like miss a probation or parole appointment or stay in pro like sit in the probation or parole office all day and miss your shift at work, and then you don't have a job. And then, you know, your officer will ask, okay, well, are you employed? And then you have to say no because you just lost your job 'cause you were sitting in the office.
00:06:50 - Like, it's this very kind of, malicious, vicious cycle, that people end up being, kind of sucked into. And so that's what I mean when I say probation and parole. in the United States, there's a little bit of technicalities there where various jurisdictions will kind of call, parole, actually probation and vice, vice versa. But that's kind of the gist of it. in regard to the, the case studies that I mentioned with California and New York, the way
00:07:22 - different in each jurisdiction. I would say California is more, they face a lot of external pressure, particularly from the federal government and advocates to reduce their carceral population. And so as a consequence, they ended up having, they were under consent decree, after, so some, some Supreme Court rulings, which basically ruled that, it was the, the prison population in California. The prisons were far too. they're far over capacity.
00:07:54 - And, as a consequence, like the conditions in there were horrific and inhumane. And basically the federal government got involved and said, y'all have to reduce the size of your incarcerated population. This led to a lot of different, pieces of legislation being passed, one of which meant that a lot of, previously offenses previously qualified as felonies were then changed to misdemeanor offenses, which means that they could be,
00:08:25 - So sentences would then be, time and jail or county level probation instead of state incarceration for years rather than, you know, days or months in jail. And then, a much longer term, more intensive probation stay. So this in and of itself reduced the state probation population. It also reduced the, the tivity of the probation experience for folks who are now under county as opposed to state probation.
00:08:56 - of different advocacy efforts at the same time where whereby people really wanted to reinvest some of the money that California was saving from reducing their prison system. 'cause as I'm sure y'all know, the prison system's very, very expensive and taxpayers pay a lot to incarcerate folks. And so they were saying, you know, we're having all of these reductions in the cost of incarcerating people, which is great, but we also wanna reinvest this money into meaningful community-based alternatives, things

Reducing Supervision, Enhancing Community Support

00:09:28 - and avoid incarceration in the first place. So we saw in kind these kinds of two things happening at the same time where legislation was kind of changing, the sentencing that was happening for folks that were moving through the system, and then this fortification of social supports that would prevent, preemptively, avoid help people preemptively avoid system contact in the first place. And you see massive reductions in the supervision population in California and the incarcerated population in California.
00:10:00 - a lot of people worry that if you take people off serious supervision, that the crime rate will go up for obvious reasons. Like they, they worry about that. and if supervision was serving its intended purpose, then we would see that effect. But, we didn't find any evidence that that was actually happening. In fact, the crime rate was actually declining. and then to talk a little bit more about the New York City case, this is not exactly, this change didn't happen as a consequence of federal pressure or advocacy.
00:10:31 - or consent decree when they decided to kind of change how they were thinking about supervision in, in the city. New York City had a number of different things happen in tandem, most of which were kind of cultural changes within state agencies, or excuse me, local agencies whereby, the leaders of these agencies were thinking differently about the role of supervision and how efficacious it was. one of these people being my co-author, Vincent Aldi, so, you know, Vinny
00:11:04 - about, you know, some of the kind of very, like the logistical difficulties people were experiencing under supervision. for example, probationers were sitting in offices for a long time, like I just mentioned earlier. They were missing, you know, job interviews. They were missing childcare pickup times. Like it was really, it was actually not helping people reacclimate or, rehabilitate in any way. and so, so there was a few things that they undertook.
00:11:34 - with having people just check in at a kiosk at the offices, where basically you would just answer a series of questions that your probation officer used to ask you, just face to face. the electric kiosk, electronic keys kiosk actually worked quite well. people would come in, they would check all of the boxes and answer the questions and the kiosks, and they would leave. So they'd have to wait to see the po. this was so beneficial and prevented all of these la large queues at the offices that then folks began, well, more people became eligible
00:12:05 - There was all these things in place that the probation department was doing, and at the same time, there was a number of other kind of legal system mechanisms as well as, resources that were being expended, to kind of like in California to bolster social supports in the city to avoid, criminal legal system contact in the first place. So you have a number of things that are happening in tandem, including the creation of alternatives to incarceration, which, you know, I think a lot of people worry

Exploring Community-Based Alternatives to Supervision

00:12:40 - of, like low grade supervision. But in actuality, these were actually really meaningful, differences. They were really diff they were di really different than what people were experiencing under supervision. These were community-based, alternatives where, you know, they had to apply for funding from the mayor's Office of Criminal Justice when the mayor office, mayor's Office of Criminal Justice funded them, they then were able to kind of decide what it meant, like what the metrics were for success in a way that didn't criminalize people
00:13:11 - or to meet kind of these successes. And as a consequence, you see people feel like there's less kind of, social control and punitively attached to participation in these alternatives as opposed to with supervision. a number of other things happen too. You've got, a number of different public defender organizations that are able to, more adequately defend people in court. rather than just having a few public defenders,
00:13:42 - and unable to kind of individually cater to people, who are moving through the system. You know, there's lots of different things that are happening and, I know I'm talking for too long right now, so I'll just end with that. But, there, there was, there was a lot of things happening together, that, you know, requires to be fair, a lot of money and a lot of people willing to think creatively about some of these issues, willing to kind of take chances and experiment.
00:14:13 - of climate is not in every jurisdiction. you know, California and New York City in particular are very progressive areas, very well-resourced. They're not want for money, in when it comes to the criminal justice system. and so in these respects, they are unique, but I think that there's a lot of interesting takeaways that, others jurisdictions could learn from in the United States and maybe abroad as well. This work kind of originated from, a, a book that Vince and Aldi wrote that actually came out recently
00:14:45 - and, and so we had been really thinking about these issues and, and trying to find evidence of, you know, can we find anywhere an empirical evaluation that says that probation does what it's intended to do, or parole does what it's intended to do. And what it's intended to do is prevent further crime and to, you know, prevent people from also being incarcerated. It's supposed to be rehabilitative, it's supposed to help people stay in their, their communities. and we just found an absolute dearth of information
00:15:19 - we were shocked. I guess that just goes to show that there's a lot of policy that is not empirically based, that becomes kind of the norm, without people even realizing that actually we don't know if this works or not. and so that was our key conclusion and, and we really wanted to convince other people of that. We also wanted to show that there's other ways of being, you know, we're kind of entrenched, in this logic right now where the idea of getting rid of supervision,

Debunking the Safety Myth in Supervision

00:15:50 - or scary or dangerous. but in actuality it's not providing safety. It's actually, potentially, you know, decreasing our level of safety. Folks are, you know, experiencing supervision and then they're getting sucked back into the carceral state, which as we know, you know, many people hypothesize as being criminogenic in and of itself. So the idea that, we need to rely on supervision to increase our level of safety is, is false.
00:16:22 - and then some of the implications from work obviously is, is trying to show ways of being that don't rely on supervision. So, California, New York, like I just said, they're, they're unique cases, they're well funded, they're progressive. the kind of advocacy structure infrastructure was there, but that doesn't mean this can't happen in other places. there are a number of folks working on these issues and they, and they have a lot of, kind of suggestions that are general enough that folks
00:16:54 - them, one of which is to reduce monetary sanctions that are associated with supervision. New York City doesn't have them, most places in California don't have them, but charge people to be under supervision. So it's a money maker for the state. And you know, we argue that that's obviously, in a lot of ways unconstitutional. And then in addition to that, it means that, you know, a lot of other agencies in that state then rely on criminal justice
00:17:24 - And that kind of, economic function is not productive and it just keeps people within these systems, in a way that, you know, is hugely detrimental to society. So that's one thing we'd argue. We argue that there's steps you can take to downsize before you experiment with abolition, including things like, you know, reducing the length of supervision stays. so, you know, a lot of jurisdictions have moved from, automatic sentence of three years to probation
00:17:57 - that have nothing to do with what your conviction were. So, you know, if you were not convicted of a drug offense, you don't need to go do frequent drug testing, as part of your condition, conditions of supervision. So things like that, that are very practical and actually don't cost all that much. you know, obviously getting rid of monetary sanctions does cost a lot and would change kind of the economic, kind of structure of, of the way these of these states are operating.
00:18:36 - can make a big difference and actually, might produce more safety and certainly keep more people out of incarceration and be a cost saving maneuver for states in the long run.

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