The Purpose of Probation for Modern Agencies: A Qualitative Analysis of Community Supervision Agency Missions and Visions

Background: Mission and vision statements are important tools for communicating organizational goals and intentions. Effectively crafted mission and vision statements can assist organizations in meeting goals by influencing employee perceptions of their organization and daily tasks. Probation is the largest sector of the criminal legal system, overseeing more than half of the 5.5 million people under correctional supervision in the United States. Over the last 50 years, community supervision agencies have largely shifted away from law-enforcement oriented surveillance tactics to proactive evidence-based behavioral interventions. Researchers and practitioners have noted that organizational culture and practitioner attitudes can impact the implementation of evidence-based practices (EBPs). The current study is an exploratory analysis probation agency mission and vision statements. The study explores major themes across agency statements and their alignment with EBPs.

Method: The Utah Criminal Justice Center (UCJC) collaborated with the National Institute of Corrections (NIC) and the National Association of Probation Executives (NAPE) to conduct a study on the use of community supervision fees by adult probation departments. As part of this larger study, secondary data was collected from agency websites, internal publications, and state statutes. A general inductive analysis was conducted to develop themes from the qualitative data. Two researchers independently coded the data. The researchers compared codes and discussed differences until they reached agreement. The process was overseen by a third researcher to ensure quality.

Results: Mission and vision statements were coded to determine the intended purpose of probation agencies. Over half (54.9%) of agency mission statements indicate public safety as the primary goal (n = 28). Just over one-third (39.2%) included language regarding well-being for people on probation (n = 20); 31.4% were coded as being focused on accountability (n = 16); almost 20% mentioned reparations to victims (n = 10); and less than 10% mentioned compliance (n = 6).

Conclusions and Implications: Analysis of probation agencies’ mission and vision statements indicate mixed and sometime contradictory purposes. Though probation agencies directly serve people assigned to probation, mission statements largely focused on meeting the needs of broader communities and victims with only a third indicating a responsibility for the well-being of probationers. Common language focusing on surveillance outcomes and retributive responses to criminal behavior reinforce perceptions that people on probation are dangers to their communities rather than members of those communities. This language is at odds with agency policies and practices emphasizing rehabilitative interventions that are core aspects of EBPs. This could reduce practitioner buy-in for EBPs thereby undermining the implementation and effectiveness of these practices.