Tempered Radicals: Considering Street-Level Community Corrections Officers and Supervisors’ Divergence from Policies

Abstract

Every day, community corrections staff make complex decisions in an uncertain environment, affecting their workload, supervisees, and public safety. These micro-level decisions have the cumulative potential to influence the overarching goals of the organization as well as probationers themselves. While focal concerns theory is a well-developed explanation of decision-making in courts and policing, within the community corrections context, scholars have only applied the framework to specific reforms or decisions. Using ethnographic data from a community corrections agency and a grounded theory approach we extend the focal concerns perspective, and uncover how and why frontline supervisors and officers diverge from an array of policies. A spectrum of policy divergence themes emerge suggesting collective action between staff and policies. Findings reveal emergent rationale for why staff make micro-level divergent decisions, and how the collective action of officers and frontline supervisors serves as tempered divergence, ultimately altering the implementation and fidelity of policy.

Keywords:

• Focal concerns
• tempered radicals
• policy divergence
• community corrections
• qualitative research

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Danielle S. Rudes and Heather Toronjo for their helpful comments on previous drafts.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 It is worth noting this characterization speaks primarily to medium to high risk individuals supervised on an “active” caseload, and does not refer to individuals on administrative cases or those who report by telephone or on a less frequent basis (who are typically assessed as low risk).

2 Researchers obtained verbal consent as approved by IRB. Researchers informed staff of the purpose of the study, assured them all activities observed and conversations had would remain confidential, and all data would be de-identified.

3 The agency relied on a machine-learning based risk assessment program that accounted for numerous variables in assessing risk, including zip code. Scholars have noted the dilemmas in including variables that may act as proxies for systemic racism (Byrne & Pattavina, 2017), and to our knowledge the agency has since discontinued used of this assessment tool.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by funding provided by the study organization. The organization’s identity remains confidential to protect the privacy of the participants.

Notes on contributors

Kimberly R. Kras

Kimberly R. Kras, PhD, is an Assistant Professor at San Diego State University. Her work centers on the study of community corrections, reentry and desistance from offending behavior, and utilizes both quantitative and qualitative methodologies. Dr. Kras’ research considers how offender behavior change occurs from both the offenders’ and community corrections agents’ perspectives by examining reentry-related experiences, collateral consequences of conviction, and evidence-based practices. Dr. Kras’ work has been published in Criminology and Public Policy, the Journal of Criminal Justice, and the Journal of Drug Issues. Dr. Kras’ work is also focused on translating research findings into practice through practitioner publications and on-site and web-based trainings.

Shannon Magnuson

Shannon Magnuson, MS, is a Doctoral Candidate at George Mason University and a Research Assistant (contractor) at the National Institute of Justice. Her research interests include the intersection of implementation/change management and justice organizations. Shannon’s dissertation explores how four state prisons grappled with mandated reform within their Restricted Housing Units. Her questions consider how each institution implemented the reform, how the reform inmates living and staff working in Restricted Housing Units and the direct and indirect impacts of the reform on individuals, the unit and the institution, more broadly.

Shannon Portillo

Shannon Portillo, PhD is Assistant Vice Chancellor of Undergraduate Programs at the KU Edwards Campus and an Associate Professor in the School of Public Affairs and Administration at the University of Kansas. Dr. Portillo takes an interdisciplinary approach to her work pulling on organizational theories rooted in Public Administration, Law and Society, and Criminology to explore how rules and policies are carried out within public organizations. To date she has done work in a broad array of organizations including the military, problem-solving courts, probation, restorative justice programs, administrative hearings, policing, higher education, and city management. Using a variety of methods, she collects empirical data to assess how social, cultural, and legal factors influence the day-to-day operations in these organizations. Teaching and research interests include social equity, social justice, organizational theory, and law and public management. Her work has appeared in Law & Policy, Administration & Society, Law & Social Inquiry, Journal of Public Administration Research & Theory and Public Administration Review, among other outlets.

Faye S. Taxman

Faye S. Taxman, PhD is a University Professor in the Criminology, Law and Society Department and Director of the Center for Advancing Correctional Excellence at George Mason University. Dr. Taxman is recognized for her work in the development of the seamless systems of care models that link the criminal justice with other service delivery systems as well as reengineering probation and parole supervision services, and organizational change models. Her work covers the breadth of the correctional system from jails and prisons to community corrections and adult and juvenile offenders, including all types of interventions and system improvement factors. She has had numerous grants from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, National Institute of Justice, National Institute of Corrections, Office of National Drug Control Policy, and Bureau of Justice Assistance. Dr. Taxman has published over 190 articles including translational work such as the Tools of the Trade: A Guide to Incorporating Science into Practice, a publication of the National Institute on Corrections which provides a guidebook to implementation of science-based concepts into practice. She is the author (with Steve Belenko) of Implementing Evidence-Based Community Corrections and Addiction Treatment (Springer, 2011).