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Examining The Impact of Ohio's Progressive Sanction Grid, Final Report

NCJ Number
224317
Author(s)
Brian Martin
Date Published
August 2008
Length
144 pages
Annotation
This federally supported project investigates the effectiveness of recently introduced progressive sanction guidelines for post-prison offenders under the supervision of the Ohio Adult Parole Authority.
Abstract

Results from the study reveal patterns that are consistent with goals and objectives of the policy. Specifically, they show significantly reduced reliance on revocation hearings, revocation sanctions, and local jail detention, more efficient and concentrated use of hearings, better congruence between offender risk and revocation sanctions, and increased progressiveness in response. The sanction guidelines have no independent effect on key supervision outcomes in fully specified survival models. However, they do enhance the effectiveness of sanction-based programming, especially for high-risk offenders. Recent increases in prison releases have caused explosive growth in the number of offenders under supervision, increased reliance on parole revocations, and exacerbated problems related to caseload management. The prisoner reentry movement has generated several reforms in community corrections to more effectively manage these offenders, including the use of progressive sanction policies to guide responses to violation behavior. This project supported by the U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, investigates the effectiveness of recently introduced progressive sanction guidelines governing post-prison offenders under the supervision of the Ohio Adult Parole Authority, the central feature of which is a violation response grid. The overall project consists of four components, which include quantitative analyses of policy implementation and offender recidivism based on coded information from case files, a survey-based process evaluation, and an independently conducted validation study. Tables, figures, references, and appendixes 1-9