The Core Mission: Partnerships for Public Safety
By Leonard Sipes and Bryan Young, Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency
Police officers and CSOs conduct an accountability tour.
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It's 5:30 a.m. at the Fifth District station of the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) in Washington, D.C., where community complaints about violence prompted an early-morning meeting.
Branch Chief Jody Tracy, with the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency (CSOSA), called the meeting with her staff and police officers to discuss how warrants are served. CSOSA is the federal agency that provides probation and parole supervision in D.C.
"Our objective is to take noncompliant offenders off the street," CSOSA Associate Director Tom Williams explained at the station. "For example, close to 300 offenders with outstanding warrants were arrested by D.C. police and CSOSA security staff at our offices during the first 6 months of the year. But we cannot pick up everyone when they make office visits. You've got to go out to their homes."
At the Edgewood Terrace apartment complex in Northeast D.C., officers encounter enthusiastic residents who welcome the joint presence of police and CSOSA's community supervision officers (CSOs) when they arrive to serve warrants.
"Thank God you're here," one resident says as he watches the officers go to work.
A mother holding a child nods approvingly when told that officers are searching for errant parolees and probationers. "The quicker you can get the bad ones out, the safer we will be," she states. "Help the good ones, but take the troublemakers," she adds.
Edgewood Terrace, like several other D.C. neighborhoods, is improving economically but still struggling with crime. The day before the officers served warrants at Edgewood Terrace, three CSOSA officers accompanied police to the scene of a shooting to serve warrants and to meet jointly with offenders in the community. These joint meetings are called accountability tours.
"We responded with the police because community supervision is a partnership," Williams explained. "We have to be out there with the police responding to serious incidents in order to earn the community's trust and support."
CSOSA's community relations staff attend most of the community meetings in the city where crime is an issue. They also schedule monthly meetings with community leaders in every police district to discuss pressing issues.
CSOSA supervision staff attend monthly intelligence-sharing meetings in each police district. Weekly exchanges of information occur in district subdivisions, and specialized CSOSA teams, such as the Sex Offender Unit, routinely share information with MPD detectives that result in the incarceration of child sex offenders.
Most practitioners agree that community policing is an effective strategy. The same is proving true for community-based parole and probation efforts. Throughout the country, parole and probation is emerging from its "central office" orientation, and putting officers on the street to work side by side with police and community members.
Since its inception, CSOSA has dedicated itself to implementing a state-of-the-art community supervision system with high levels of offender contact and drug testing. Caseload ratios are among the lowest in the nation. Almost 50 percent of the population of probationers and parolees are assigned to specialized caseloads or are classified as "intensive" supervision, both of which result in more frequent face-to-face contact.
CSOSA maintains field offices and learning labs in neighborhoods where the offender population is concentrated. At each location, agency operations focus on assessing offenders' risks and working in partnership with law enforcement and community-based organizations to provide offenders with the opportunities they need to be able to contribute to their family, the workforce, and the community. Several community leaders say that the placement of new field offices has stabilized their communities and allowed them direct access to managers about troublesome offenders.
The CSOSA-MPD partnership is built on three basic activities:
- Intelligence and information sharing: CSOs and police officers form teams to supervise defined geographic areas and to share photographs, addresses, and background information on high-risk offenders. CSOSA also shares offender data electronically—photographs, names, aliases, associates' names, criminal histories, employment history, and housing data—with partnering police agencies.
- Accountability tours: CSOs and uniformed police officers in marked police vehicles conduct accountability tours (joint visits with offenders in the community) throughout the city. These activities have led to multiple arrests for weapons and narcotics violations, and they reinforce the need for offenders to comply with community supervision requirements, such as drug testing.
- Mass orientations: CSOs and law enforcement partners host mass orientations, where they meet with offenders recently ordered or released to community supervision. Prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia also attend these mass orientations to warn offenders about the significant consequences of possessing or using a firearm while on probation, parole, or supervised release.
From these activities, police on the street know which ex-offenders are on probation or parole, where they reside, and with whom they live. In return, CSOs gain the eyes and ears of police who have a presence in the community.
The fundamental features of this partnership also make possible key elements of the Project Safe Neighborhoods strategy to reduce gun-related crime in D.C. CSOSA, police, and the U.S. Attorney's Office collaborate to identify individuals who are aware of or possibly involved in gang-related activity in violent "hotspots" throughout the city. CSOs order offenders to attend call-in sessions in which police, prosecutors, CSOSA officials, and community leaders urge the offenders to "clean up their act" or face joint enforcement and prosecution by the criminal justice system. These efforts are currently being evaluated.
CSOSA has other partnerships as well, including community networks that promote opportunities for offenders. In addition, a faith-community partnership provides mentors and establishes a network of faith-based institutions that offer resources and support programs for returning offenders.
CSOSA's partnership strategy is making a positive difference in D.C. Recidivism for probationers (who constitute 70 percent of intakes) is down from 21 percent arrested in 2002 to 13 percent arrested in 2004. The combined rate for probationers and parolees remained flat at 18 percent during the same period. Baseline data on rearrests for parolees collected before 2002 show larger decreases. Obviously, the degree of CSOSA's interactions with law enforcement affects the percentage of arrests. Reincarcerations, revocations, and drug use have also decreased.
CSOSA is dedicated to establishing effective community and criminal justice partnerships. These activities are essential to achieving the agency's public safety mission, which results in a safer city.
For more information, contact:
Leonard A. Sipes, Jr.
CSOSA Senior Public Affairs Specialist
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