Survey of State Parole Agencies on Reentry Services

Though state parole agencies play a vital role in reintegrating formally incarcerated individuals into society via rehabilitative programming (e.g., drug, sex offender, mental health, or similar treatment programs) and other reentry services (e.g., housing, education, and transportation assistance), there is no current national-level data on how prevalent these reentry services are nor how many people on parole supervision are enrolled in these programs.  As such, the Justice Research and Statistics Association (JRSA), in collaboration with the American Probation and Parole Association (APPA), proposes to conduct a Survey of State Parole Agencies on Reentry Services (SSPARS).

The purpose of the proposed project is to develop, test, and administer the SSPARS instrument and deliver the cleaned data file and codebook to BJS.  The goal of the survey is to generate national- and state-level statistics on the types of treatment programs, housing and employment assistance, and other reentry services received by adults on parole supervision in the 50 states and the District of Columbia.  The proposed project will accomplish six primary tasks: (1) program management throughout the project period; (2) engage stakeholders/SMEs to develop, test, and implement the survey; (3) obtain generic and full OMB clearance for the cognitive testing and final administration of the SSPARS instrument, respectively; (4) administer the SSPARS and collect response data; (5) clean and process the data files; and (6) write a final technical report.