Officer Supervision Styles and Female Probationer/Parolee Recidivism

ABSTRACT

Research shows that community supervision officer-client relationships have a meaningful impact on probationer/parolee recidivism; however, such understanding is generally limited to male or juvenile clients. The purpose of the current study was to examine how supervision officers’ background and caseload characteristics related to their supervision style and then how this impacted rearrest among the female clients on their caseload. Using self-report survey and interview data, we found that there were no indicators that were related to an officer’s supervision style; however, probationers/parolees who were supervised by officers with a more procedurally fair approach were more likely to be rearrested within the first 24 months of being on community supervision, and those who were supervised by officers who were more authoritative were less likely to be rearrested within this time frame. These results have several implications for future research and policy, particularly concerning the need to focus on gender-specific probation/parole imperatives.

KEYWORDS:

• Female probation
• female parole
• community supervision officers
• desistance

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Supplementary material

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