Probation and Parole Officers’ Compliance With Case Management Tools: Professional Discretion and Override

• Published date: 01 October 2018
• DOI: 10.1177/0306624X18764851
• Author: Harley Williamson,Lacey Schaefer
• Date: 01 October 2018
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0306624X18764851

International Journal of

Offender Therapy and

Comparative Criminology

2018, Vol. 62(14) 4565 –4584

© The Author(s) 2018

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DOI: 10.1177/0306624X18764851

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Article

Probation and Parole

Officers’ Compliance With

Case Management Tools:

Professional Discretion and

Override

Lacey Schaefer1 and Harley Williamson1

Abstract

Actuarial assessment has become an integral component of offender management,

helping to structure the decision-making of correctional staff about offenders’ case

plans. Despite research validating instruments and documenting best practices in

offender assessment, fewer studies explore how practitioners use these diagnostic and

case management tools. Using survey data from a sample of probation and parole staff,

the current study examines the influence of professional characteristics, job burnout

and stress, and supervision strategy preferences on noncompliance with assessment

data entry and deviations from the tools’ risk and needs recommendations. Results

indicate various forms of noncompliance with case management tools are fairly

common. Staff with greater tenure and heightened depersonalization and emotional

exhaustion exhibit greater odds of assessment noncompliance. Case managers who

adopt surveillance and rehabilitation supervisory tactics are less likely to deviate

from the tools’ processes and results, while staff who prefer opportunity-reduction

strategies have increased odds of assessment noncompliance.

Keywords

probation, parole, case management, assessment, tools, professional override

1Griffith University, Mount Gravatt, Queensland, Australia

Corresponding Author:

Lacey Schaefer, Lecturer, School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Griffith Criminology Institute,

Griffith University, Social Sciences Building (M.10), 176 Messines Ridge Road, Mount Gravatt,

Queensland 4122, Australia.

Email: l.schaefer@griffith.edu.au

764851IJOXXX10.1177/0306624X18764851International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative CriminologySchaefer and Williamson

research-article2018

4566 International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology 62(14)

Probation and parole work is traditionally shaped around regulating offenders’ activi-

ties and offering corrective interventions to assist them to live more prosocially and

desist from crime (Skeem & Manchak, 2008). Contemporarily, this goal is often

guided by the principles of effective correctional intervention, which stipulate that (a)

supervision and intervention intensity should be commensurate with the level of risk

of reoffending each offender exhibits (the risk principle), (b) these strategies should

target for change those factors that are associated with offending (referred to as crimi-

nogenic needs; the needs principle), and (c) these strategies should be responsive to

the unique attributes of the individual offender (the responsivity principle). Central to

each of these principles is the requirement for a valid assessment of each offender’s

risk, needs, and responsivity considerations (Andrews & Bonta, 2010; Andrews,

Bonta, & Wormith, 2006). Furthermore, these assessment tools facilitate consistency

and transparency in offender case management to produce actuarial rather than clinical

judgments (Oleson, VanBenschoten, Robinson, Lowenkamp, & Holsinger, 2012).

Yet despite their importance, research highlights that practitioners do not systemati-

cally use these tools, which can create disparate and often undesirable offender out-

comes (J. Miller & Maloney, 2013). While there is a large body of evidence that

supports the utility of validated assessments in case managing offenders (Andrews &

Bonta, 2010), recent studies demonstrate that assessment tools are frequently neglected

or misused (J. Miller & Maloney, 2013; Viglione, Rudes, & Taxman, 2015). This mat-

ter has perhaps become increasingly important as many corrections agencies have

struggled to keep pace with rising caseloads and diminishing resources; while some

may argue that these tools improve agency efficiencies, it may also be that officers fail

to complete assessments as designed due to these workload demands. As an illustra-

tion, in an American Probation and Parole Association study of the effect of these

consequences of workload, one participant stated that, “we believe in the evidence

based practices approach, but carrying them out can be difficult” (DeMichele, 2007, p.

48). A wealth of research highlights that valid offender assessments are integral to core

correctional practices, but the ways in which other relevant principles (such as profes-

sional discretion/override and integrity; Andrews & Bonta, 2010) influence the use of

these tools is less understood. This study, therefore, seeks to examine whether proba-

tion and parole officers use offender assessments as prescribed. Specifically, we exam-

ine how compliant or manipulative staff are with data entry and the ways that they act

outside recommendations made by risk/needs assessments.

The Evolving Role of Probation and Parole Officers

The seminal work of Klockars (1973) on the typology of probation work identified

two poles of rationale exhibited by officers in their understanding of their roles: law

enforcers and therapeutic agents. Klockars further identified that along this continuum

of practices between enforcement and treatment are two additional orientations: time

servers (those who are administratively compliant but otherwise uninvested) and syn-

thetic officers (those who aim to embed enforcement and treatment into supervision).

This important study has continued to impact our understanding of probation and