Parole in Transition

• NCJ Number: 69895
• Journal: California Youth Authority Quarterly Volume: 32 Issue: 2 Dated: (Summer/Fall 1980) Pages: 54-60
• Author(s): R Bishop
• Date Published: 1980
• Length: 7 pages
• Corporate Author: California Dept of the Youth Authority
• Publication Format: Article
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

The California Youth Authority's parole program for young offenders has been reorganized from an eclectic and multidisciplined mass of units to a more consolidated and responsive system.

Abstract

The vision of a correctional system with an effective community-based parole program served as a guiding principle for the California Youth Authority's (CYA) parole assessment. As the assessment began, CYA's Parole Branch consisted of interstate units, community centers, State-operated residential programs, regular parole units without specialized staff, and involvement in federally funded programs. The Branch Cabinet identified four major program goals: community assessment (investigations to be made at the time a CYA commitment was made by the courts), reentry services (to extend from the last part of institutional stays through the initial parole period), case management (supervision regarding the parole plan), and corrective action (actions in which staff must be involved to intervene in alleged misbehavior by parolees). A Parole Workload System served as a model for a Statewide workload system and the Increased Parole Effectiveness Program provided background data on which to build a new approach to parole services. Reorganization established case service performance standards and a monitoring process to evaluate effectiveness, changes in administrative structures and adjustments in workload estimates. Parole reorganization has provided for increased staff contacts with and supervision of the parole wards, has shown fewer parolees to be failing on parole and returned to an institutional program, and has made possible broader recognition of community-based correctional staff. Moreover, the California Probation, Parole, and Correctional Association has supported the CYA's State youth corrections agency providing both institutional and parole services. Ten references are provided.