From Catching Failure to Promoting Success: Transforming Community Supervision

This session is eligible for  1.0 Standard CLE credit and Social Work CEUs.

To receive continuing education credits, purchase the appropriate ticket and you will receive access to the password projected video online. For legal practitioners seeking CLE credit, take note of the keyword that will appear in the video. When you are done viewing the video, submit the keyword to info@mnjrc.org and you will receive the code you need to claim your CLE. 

About this session:

This session was part of the MNJRC's 2023 Re-Imagining Justice Conference. To learn more about the annual conference, please visit: https://www.mnjrc.org/re-imagining-justice-conference

Over the past four decades, the number of people on probation and supervised release in Minnesota has risen. At the same time, community supervision has remained underfunded, inconsistently applied, plagued by racial disparities, and ineffective at supporting people and strengthening communities. Supervision terms are too long and prison intake in the state is driven by revocations, with over 60 percent of new admissions resulting from supervision failures. These individuals comprise approximately 25 percent of the prison population and cost taxpayers more than $77 million per year. This system of warehousing people and churning them out of prison increases recidivism and undermines public safety.

After decades of studies detailing the drawbacks of community supervision in Minnesota, in 2023 state elected officials acted with a comprehensive series of supervision reforms to reduce the number of people under correctional control, prioritize resources toward higher-risk individuals, lower instances of revocation to prison, and encourage more successful supervision outcomes.

Presenters:

--Will Cooley from the Minnesota Justice Research Center will moderate

--Caity Curry from the Minnesota Justice Research Center will provide an overview of what legislative changes occurred in Minnesota and why these bills were passed.

--Robyn Wood from Dodge and Olmsted County Corrections will discuss the impacts of this legislation on community supervision practitioners.

--Christina Bohnstedt will consider what impact the legislation will have on people on supervision in the state.

All three panelists will also discuss the future of community supervision and propose what changes they would like to see.