About the Development of this Guide
To develop this guide, staff of the Council of State Governments (CSG) Justice Center interviewed dozens of experts in community corrections, court administration, child support, victim services, and other fields. In addition, the CSG Justice Center reviewed policies and procedures from countless local, state, and federal agencies, legislation enacted in various states, and published and unpublished research. This guide also benefited considerably from a day-long meeting attended by various leading policymakers, practitioners, and advocates (for a description of the methodology used to develop this guide, see below).
This guide also draws on the Report of the Re-Entry Policy Council. The council brought together more than 100 leaders from across the United States to develop bipartisan recommendations for policymakers to use to improve the likelihood that adults released from prisons and jails will avoid crime and become productive, healthy members of families and communities. These recommendations were published in January 2005, in the council’s landmark report, which can be viewed, free, online at www.reentrypolicy.org. This report is a valuable resource for readers of this guide, who may find useful the additional discussions of relevant issues such as the employment of people released from prison and effective release and supervision decisions.
METHODOLOGY
The CSG Justice Center conducted extensive research to develop a sophisticated understanding of the restitution, child support, and fines, fees, and surcharges that people released from prison and jail typically owe and how these financial obligations relate to a person’s reentry to the community. To develop recommendations that policymakers could use to improve rates of collection of these debts, and to increase the likelihood that people released from prison complete their sentence successfully, Justice Center staff reviewed policies developed in cities, counties, and states across the country; collected descriptions (published and unpublished) of various innovative programs; and conducted more than 100 interviews of experts in the fields of community corrections, court administration, victims’ advocacy, child support enforcement, employment, and service provision, in addition to bipartisan legislative and judicial representatives.
As part of the information-gathering process, Justice Center staff also sent an online survey in December 2005 to 1,200 members of the American Parole and Probation Association regarding their practices of collecting and monitoring the financial obligations of people on probation and parole. The project team received nearly 200 responses. The results of these surveys, together with interviews, a meeting of experts, and a review of policies, practices, and research, have been incorporated into
this report.
To review an early draft of this guide, Justice Center staff also convened an advisory group meeting on April 6, 2006, in Washington, D.C. The meeting included leaders in the fields of community corrections, court administration, victims’ advocacy, child support enforcement, employment, and service provision, in addition to bipartisan legislative and judicial representatives.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The Council of State Governments Justice Center would like to thank the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) for funding this project, and Senior Policy Advisor for Corrections Andrew Molloy in particular for his support. The center would also like to thank the National Institute of Corrections for generously underwriting the costs of convening a meeting to review an early draft of this guide.
The center’s board and staff also thank Carl Wicklund and Diane Kincaid for their generous assistance with the survey of American Probation and Parole Association (APPA) members. The center relied heavily on the expertise of members of the National Center for State Courts (NCSC) in compiling this report and would like to thank Kay Farley and Dave Byers of NCSC for their analysis and support. Jason Bryl conducted extensive research in Texas to prepare the sample collections diagram; his tireless work on this project was tremendously valuable. In addition, Vicki Turetsky of the Center for Law and Social Policy, Amy Solomon of the Urban Institute, Bob Sudlow of the Ulster County Adult Probation Department in New York, and Sharon English, victim advocate, conducted a detailed review of this document, for which the project staff are extremely grateful.
The authors also wish to thank the numerous current and former staff within the Justice Center who contributed their time to reviewing this document, including Martha Plotkin, Jessica Nickel, Elizabeth Nevins, and Katherine Brown. In addition, the center thanks all of the individuals, too many to list here, who contributed their thoughtful experience and expertise to the development of this document. In particular, the authors are indebted to the members of an advisory group at a meeting convened in April 2006, in Washington, D.C., to explore solutions to this issue and to provide feedback on an early draft of this report. Finally, thanks is due to Elizabeth Hurwit for her usual attention to detail in proofing this report.