ABSTRACT
Dubbed the workhorse of the American criminal justice system (Torbet 1996), probation – and its community corrections counterpart, parole – bear more than their share of correctional weight. With just over four million U.S. adults and roughly 500,000 juveniles under probation supervision and another 840,000 adults currently supervised on parole (Chiancone 2010; Glaze and Bonczar 2010; Livsey 2010), these pre- and post-release organizational systems form a critical component of the justice experience for many offenders, their families and communities. Despite these sizeable numbers, much of the scientific research on probation explores only offender outcomes such as success on supervision (see, e.g., Hildebrand et al. 2012; Sims and Jones 1997; Wodahl et al. 2011), recidivism (Bourgon and Gutierrez 2012; Green and Winick 2010; Spohn and Holleran 2002) and time to completion or relapse from treatment or supervision generally (Deschenes et al. 1995; Langan 1994, 1996; Petersilia and Turner 1993; Taxman and Byrne 1994). Few U.S. studies focus specific attention on the probation/parole officers (POs) charged with overseeing, surveilling, monitoring and referring probationers/parolees during their supervision (Bonta et al. 2008; Clear et al. 1992; Taxman 2002; Thanner and Taxman 2003). However, these individuals – and collectively their organizations – form the framework within which community correction takes shape. That is, the way POs view their supervisees and implement the policies and practices of their organization – their ideology – represents a key mechanism for examining how and why supervision occurs. Likewise, PO perspectives also bear considerable influence over supervisee outcomes.
