Results-Oriented Solutions for Probation Funding

Right on Crime policy analyst Michael Haugen examines various performance-based probation funding models across the country, which base their formulas upon the ability of probation departments to expand supervision programs at the outset, reduce revocations to prison, or both. Doing this, rather than basing funding largely upon the number of people they directly supervise at a given time, would help to alleviate the perverse incentive to supervise people longer than is necessary to rehabilitate them, and ultimately, accomplish public safety goals.