U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government, Department of Justice.

NCJRS Virtual Library

The Virtual Library houses over 235,000 criminal justice resources, including all known OJP works.
Click here to search the NCJRS Virtual Library

Evaluating Intensive Supervision Probation/Parole (ISP) for Drug Offenders

NCJ Number
154636
Journal
Crime and Delinquency Volume: 38 Issue: 4 Dated: (October 1992) Pages: 539-556
Author(s)
S Turner; J Petersilia; E P Deschenes
Date Published
1992
Length
18 pages
Annotation
This article reports results from a recently completed randomized field experiment that tested the effects of intensive supervision probation/parole (ISP) for drug-involved offenders.
Abstract

The ISP demonstration project included five jurisdictions: Contra Costa, Calif.; Seattle, Wash.; Des Moines, Iowa; Santa Fe, N. Mex.; and Winchester, Va. Jurisdictions developed ISP programs tailored to their own contexts, using the general ISP model developed by Georgia and New Jersey in the early 1980's. Results show that ISP offenders were seen more often, submitted more often to drug testing, received more drug counseling, and had higher levels of employment than their counterparts on routine probation/parole supervision. With respect to 1-year recidivism outcomes, a higher proportion of ISP offenders had technical violations (primarily for drug use), but there was no difference between the two study groups in new criminal arrests. At the end of the 1-year follow-up, more ISP offenders had been placed in jail or prison (mostly for technical violations). This policy drove up system costs, which for ISP averaged just under $8,000 per year per offender versus approximately $5,500 per year per offender for routine supervision. The article concludes with a discussion of how these results can be used to inform future ISP research and policy discussions. 1 table, 5 figures, 10 notes, and 27 references