Benefits and Costs of “Swift, Certain, and Fair” Supervision

• Date: 01 November 2018
• Author: Elizabeth K. Drake
• Published date: 01 November 2018
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12417

EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION

ECONOMIC EVALUATION OF HOPE

Benefits and Costs of “Swift, Certain, and

Fair” Supervision

Is a Bottom-Line Estimate Really the Bottom Line?

Elizabeth K. Drake

Washington State University

Washington State Institute for Public Policy

Swift, certain, and fair supervision (SCF) is a multifaceted policy with important,

competing goals. One goal is the presumption of fiscal savings, or cost neutrality,

by trading more expensive criminal justice system resources (e.g., confinement) for

less expensive resources (e.g., supervision in the community). Although notably lacking

in the field of criminal justice (Cohen, 2016; Farrington, Petrosino, and Welsh, 2001;

Weisburd, Farrington, and Gill, 2017; Welsh and Farrington, 2015), benefit–cost analysis

can help assess whether programs or policies achieve monetary benefits that outweigh costs

to taxpayers. Benefit–cost analysis can be particularly useful for evaluating reinvestment

policies like SCF (Kleiman, 2011), as well as for assessing programs in which multiple

outcomes are targeted (Washington State Institute for Public Policy, 2017).

That is precisely the investigation that Alexander Cowell, Alan Barnosky, Pamela

Lattimore, Joel Cartwright, and Matthew DeMichele (2018: 875–899) undertook, using

a sample from the well-regarded multisite demonstration field experiment, the Honest

Opportunity Probation Enforcement program (HOPE DFE). The randomized controlled

trial results showed no differences in recidivism for HOPE DFE participants compared with

those in probation as usual (Lattimore, MacKenzie, Zajac, Dawes, Arsenault, and Tueller,

2016), and the findings from the benefit–cost analysis demonstrated no achieved criminal

justice cost-savings at three HOPE DFE sites, as well as a statistically significant increase in

costs at one HOPE DFE site in the long-run follow-up.In her policy essay response to Cowell

et al.’s findings, Angela Hawken (2018: 901–906) provides crucial contextual insights into

the interpretation of the HOPE DFE findings within the broader context of both SCF

Direct correspondence to Elizabeth K. Drake, Washington State University, Department of Criminal Justice and

Criminology, P.O. Box 644872, Pullman, WA 99164-4872 (e-mail: edrake@wsu.edu).

DOI:10.1111/1745-9133.12417 C2018 American Society of Criminology 865

Criminology & Public Policy rVolume 17 rIssue 4