NCJ Number
201960
Journal
The Prison Journal Volume: 83 Issue: 3 Dated: September 2003 Pages: 323-336
Date Published
September 2003
Length
14 pages
Annotation
This study examined the relationship between parole officers’ traits, work situation, and perceived needs.
Abstract
There is a high degree of controversy over the role of community supervision in the justice system. Despite the controversy, there seems to be a lack of definition about what the role of probation and parole officers (PPO’s) should be. As such, the authors conducted a survey analysis of 559 parole officers, supervisors, and midlevel managers who work for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice’s Parole Division in order to understand how they define the goals of their work and the impediments to accomplishing those goals. The survey was an open-ended, Likert-type questionnaire which asked about the respondents’ demographic characteristics and position in the agency. Results of factor analysis revealed a strong desire among PPO’s for more treatment recourses. The most powerful predictors of the prioritization of treatment resources were seniority, job type, and caseload size. Other salient predictors of the prioritization of treatment resources included race, city size, political ideology, gender, and education. Giving the evolving definition of community corrections, the data are of heuristic interest to national corrections policy planning. Tables, references