Analysis Area 1: Detail the impact and cost/benefit of Iowa Department of Corrections’ (IDOC) revocation-reduction efforts on public safety by determining how violations, revocations, and offending patterns by people on community supervision changed during the pandemic and estimating the impact of that change on public safety. The cost/benefit of the revocation-reduction efforts will be assessed by working with IDOC to estimate a cost of the revocation-reduction efforts in terms of staffing, caseloads, and other related costs, then balancing those costs against the impact on public safety.
Update: CSG Justice Center staff continued conversations with a research consultant and IDOC research staff to verify our understanding of the data that were shared and to map out our next series of descriptive analyses. CSG Justice Center staff continued to clean and sort the data, as well as produce visualizations to explore variation in violations, supervision caseloads, PO/client contacts, revocation hearings, and client interventions/programming prior to and during the COVID-19 pandemic. CSG Justice Center staff continued to build out an analytic file that will be used to develop and run statistical models to explore the relationship between revocation reduction and public safety as well as disaggregate key metrics by supervision type, race and ethnicity, risk level, supervision level, and criminal history for subgroup analysis. Additionally, CSG Justice Center staff created a website to compile descriptive findings, data visualizations, and pertinent notes on data interpretation and limitations. This is currently for internal use only as staff begin creating the PowerPoint presentation for the June 2 JRI Oversight Committee meeting.
Analysis Area 2: Evaluate the implementation of recent IDOC efforts to reduce revocations; estimate their impact on community-based corrections officers’ ability to supervise effectively, case management activities, officer and supervisee needs, and utilization of community-based services and programs; and identify which efforts to keep (and which to adjust or modify).
Update: CSG Justice Center staff added information from the focus group with administrative law judges to the internal report on recurring themes from the Community Supervision Assessment. CSG Justice Center staff also distributed a survey for supervision officers to get more details on their resource needs across districts; 270 officers responded.
Analysis Area 3: Connect with criminal justice stakeholders (law enforcement, courts, community-based corrections, etc.) and review available data to better understand larger criminal justice responses and changes implemented in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Update: CSG Justice Center staff convened focus groups with county attorneys, county sheriffs, and chiefs of police to discuss general practices, learn about changes implemented in response to the pandemic and their effect on operations and to solicit recommendations for improving the success of clients on community-based corrections. CSG Justice Center staff also worked with key stakeholders to schedule focus groups with county judges, reentry stakeholders, and victim advocate stakeholders.
Research Monthly Status:
CSG Justice Center staff continued conversations with a research consultant and IDOC research staff to verify our understanding of the data that were shared and to map out our next series of descriptive analyses. CSG Justice Center staff continued to clean and sort the data, as well as produce visualizations to explore variation in violations, supervision caseloads, PO/client contacts, revocation hearings, and client interventions/programming prior to and during the COVID-19 pandemic. CSG Justice Center staff continued to build out an analytic file that will be used to develop and run statistical models to explore the relationship between revocation reduction and public safety as well as disaggregate key metrics by supervision type, race and ethnicity, risk level, supervision level, and criminal history for subgroup analysis. Additionally, CSG Justice Center staff created a website to compile descriptive findings, data visualizations, and pertinent notes on data interpretation and limitations. This is currently for internal use only as staff begin creating the PowerPoint presentation for the June 2, 2022 JRI Oversight Committee meeting.
Over the coming month, CSG Justice Center staff will continue connecting with the research consultant and IDOC to discuss available data, descriptive findings, and ways to measure and model the relationship between revocation reduction and public safety, as well as elicit feedback on analysis and findings. During the next month, CSG Justice Center staff will project revocation trends using pre-COVID onset data exclusively. Using ARIMA models will allow CSG Justice Center staff to project the trend of revocations using pre-March 2020 data and then compare this projection to the actual post-March 2020 decline we see. In addition, staff will continue to share data files with the research consultant and meet with IDOC to review data analyses. CSG Justice Center staff will also incorporate feedback from IDOC regarding metric calculations (e.g., coding of violation types based on risk to public safety) and subgroup analyses to explore (e.g., disaggregating analysis by race/ethnicity, criminal history, risk scores, etc.).
Please check the box next to the following questions if the answer is 'yes'.
Please enter the applicable Event Date if there is an Event associated with this TTA.
When entering an Event Date, the Time is also required.
If the TTA is targeted to a particular audience or location, please complete the questions below.
Milestones are an element, activity, work product, or key task associated with completing the TTA (e.g. kick-off meeting, collect data from stake holders, deliver initial data analysis).
Please complete the fields below, if applicable, to create a milestone for this TTA.
Please respond to the Performance Metrics below. The Performance Metrics questions are based on the TTA Type indicated in the General Information section of the TTA.
Please submit a signed letter of support from your agency’s executive or other senior staff member. The letter can be emailed to or uploaded with this request. The letter should be submitted on official letterhead and include the following information:
- General information regarding the request for TTA services, i.e., the who, what, where, when, and why.
- The organizational and/or community needs specific to the request for TTA services.
- The benefits or anticipated outcomes from the receipt of TTA services.
By submitting this application to BJA NTTAC, I understand that upon approval of this application for TTA, the requestor agrees to keep BJA NTTAC informed of any circumstances that may impact the delivery of the TTA, including changes in the date of the event, event cancellation, or difficulties communicating with the assigned TTA provider.
Please call [site:phone] if you need further assistance completing this application.