Toward Accountability: A Qualitative Assessment of Supervision Officers’ Responses to Noncompliance During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Participant Recruitment

A total of three waves of data were collected, including agency-level survey responses and qualitative interviews with probation and parole officers across the United States. The current analyses relied on interviews conducted during the first wave of data collection, July through November of 2020. Initially, agency directors from across the United States were invited to participate in an electronic survey (Viglione et al., 2020). At the conclusion of the survey, directors were asked to share information about the corresponding interviews with their staff. In total, 57 directors agreed to share interview flyers which contained an electronic link that officers could access to sign up and schedule an interview. At the end of this process, the research team were able to connect with 49 community supervision officers. Officers were eligible to participate as long as they currently carried an active caseload and were over the age of 18. During initial contact, we explained the purpose and voluntary nature of the study. Seven individuals were excluded from the interview as they did not carry an active caseload. The final sample included 42 eligible PPOs.

Participants

Representing 32 unique agencies from 15 states, the sample included probation and parole officers from adult (n = 38) and juvenile (n = 4) agencies. Most officers were employed in states belonging to the Midwest region (n = 20) of the United States followed by the South (n = 12) with the remaining respondents representing states belonging to the Northeast (n = 6) and West regions (n = 4). Of the 42 officers who completed an interview, the majority of PPOs were female, (67%), identified as White (86%), held a Bachelor’s degree (60%), and were on average 43 years of age. On average, officers supervised a caseload of 71 individuals, with more than half reporting (55%) supervising at least one special population (e.g., mental health and drug court participants).

Interview Protocol

Prior to the start of data collection, the research team developed a protocol to guide the interviews. Interviews were semi-structured, allowing the interviewers to probe for new information and depth that allowed PPOs to expand upon their responses as necessary (Corbin & Strauss, 1990). Interviews were not recorded but rather the research team used the “jotting” method, a commonly used technique in qualitative research, to promote rapport between researcher and interviewee (Emerson et al., 2001). Using this approach, interviewers took quick, shorthand notes during the interview to remain engaged in active conversation while also documenting the interview. Exact quotes were recorded when possible. Immediately following each interview, the interviewer expanded interview notes, including correcting shorthand and typos, to ensure all information was recorded. Completed notes were uploaded to Atlas.ti, a program frequently used for managing and analyzing qualitative data (Muhr, 1991).

The interview protocol contained a number of domains designed to better understand officers’ experiences working during the COVID-19 pandemic. Four of these domains were most relevant to the current study. First, respondents were asked broadly to consider how their experience as a supervision officer changed in relation to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Next, the research team asked officers to identify and discuss the practices being used to monitor their clients’ compliance to the conditions of supervision. Third, PPOs were asked to identify strategies utilized to address noncompliance and compare their response options to prepandemic. Finally, respondents were asked to report their perceptions about strategies that were most effective in holding clients accounting during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Data Collection

Interviews occurred one-on-one via telephone or Zoom, with the average length of interviews approximately 76 minutes. Three members of the research team conducted interviews following a rigorous training process, which included training on qualitative interviewing, effective probing, and the interview protocol to promote consistency across interviewers. In addition, the study PI reviewed interview transcripts to provide immediate feedback to each interviewer to increase quality and rigor of collected data. Throughout the data collection process, we acknowledged our social and professional positionalities as White, male and female university graduate students and faculty, which may have shaped the nature of our PPO interviews, including participant willingness to openly share their experiences. Our backgrounds researching and evaluating community corrections agencies and their implementation of core correctional practices may have inadvertently biased our perspective toward rehabilitative efforts. We engaged in continuous reflexivity throughout the research process to check our personal and professional backgrounds and their potential influence on the collection and interpretation of data. Participation in each portion of this study was approved by the University’s Institutional Review Board.

Coding and Analysis

All transcribed interviews were uploaded to Atlas.ti (Muhr, 1991) for coding and analysis. We engaged in thematic analysis by engaging in a process outlined by Clarke and Braun (2017). This process began with each member of the research team familiarizing themselves with the data by reading all interviews and recording initial observations in memos in Atlas. Next, we began the coding process with application of a “start list” of codes that were developed from each open-ended interview question (Charmaz, 2006) (e.g., compliance monitoring, responses to noncompliance, and effective strategies). Following this initial round of coding, two members of the research team independently engaged in an inductive line-by-line coding strategy developing new codes beyond those identified in the creation of the start list using continual grounded theory reads of the data (Charmaz, 1995). This coding procedure allowed for the identification of themes that may have not been directly solicited through the open-ended interview questions (Charmaz, 2006). Following these steps, data were merged in Atlas.ti to compare the independently coded transcripts and test for inter-rater reliability. Researchers agreed on coding for 96% of interview transcripts. However, disagreements in coding were not substantive, but rather related to code specificity (e.g., use of “judicial discretion” compared with “courts/judges” for the same excerpt). Using the consensus decision-making process (Van Deinse et al., 2021), independent coders describe their intent behind their coding decisions and the team selected a single code for the excerpt in question.

Next, we queried the data to identify prevalent themes within the data (Morgan & Nica, 2020). A query was run for each code related to the current manuscript (e.g., accountability, noncompliance, response to noncompliance), resulting in a list of excerpts linked to each code. These excerpts were reviewed both independently and in relation to the entire dataset to identify whether each theme was standalone or was related to another identified theme. When necessary, themes were split (e.g., if they told a different story) or combined (e.g., if they told the same story). We then analyzed each final theme to determine their meaning and name them. While this process identified many themes, this study focuses only on those related to changes to officers’ experiences surrounding monitoring and responding to noncompliance. The following section details our main findings with randomly generated pseudonyms to ensure participant confidentiality. ¹

Monitoring Supervision Compliance

Prior to the pandemic, one of the key supervision tools PPOs used to guide decisions and compliance monitoring was risk and needs assessments. Before COVID-19, client risk level dictated the type and frequency of supervision contact requirements. For example, many PPOs mentioned how individuals classified as moderate or high risk were required to have more frequent contact with their supervision officer that typically involved face-to-face meetings, with low-risk clients requiring much less contact and oversight. Officer Mendoza described how the classification of risk level dictated contact and supervision requirements, including home visits:

We classify them into low, moderate, or maximum which then corresponds to how frequently we might contact them throughout the year. Low might be a single contact every 6 months or if they are wearing any kind of tether [e.g., alcohol] then they are going to be your maximum risk individuals (high risk probationer) and we might see them at least twice a month for face-to-face meetings prior to COVID.

Although it is perhaps unsurprising that many PPOs reported utilizing risk assessment to guide supervision decision-making practices prior to the pandemic, nearly all interviewed PPOs indicated that the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic significantly altered these practices. One of the most prominent alterations discussed by PPOs that occurred during the pandemic were adaptations in how frequently officers contacted clients on their caseloads as well as the modality of contact. Because many field offices and courthouses experienced temporary closures across the country, many PPOs discussed significant changes in client contact requirements. For example, face-to-face meetings were often no longer occurring, and agencies where they were still allowed to see their clients in person, these visits were reduced in frequency based on client risk levels. Several PPOs said contact with low risk individuals largely stopped altogether with most supervision efforts largely focused on the highest risk populations. In fact, in many offices, PPOs were not permitted to make face-to-face contact with even their highest risk clients. Fieldnotes from PPO Wright provide an example of this finding:

Well of course the biggest [change] is that we have not been able to meet with our people in person, even my high-risk clients. Before the whole COVID, I was seeing high and greatest risk clients at least once a week, now I am really only seeing maybe once every couple months.

As these two PPOs suggest, officers had to drastically reduce the amount of in-person contact they made with individuals on their caseload, regardless of risk level. In addition to this challenge, PPOs reported increased difficulty monitoring clients in the field. That is, most PPOs were often unable to conduct standard home visits, house searches, and/or make employment verifications in the field. Officer Black discussed this finding as well:

We were not allowed out in the field so not making any checks or verifying places of employment or people’s living situations. Normally, I would go out and make a contact to verify a person’s living arrangement and maybe talk with their family to see how probationer is doing and look around to see if anything suspicious going on or if drugs are in the home. But that all had to stop when we shut things down.

This inability to conduct field work left PPOs feeling like they had incomplete information about clients on their caseload. Making contacts in the field is one of the primary mechanisms PPOs have to better understand the holistic picture of a client’s life—where they can get a sense of their living situation, family/social environment, and employment. Officers discussed the benefit of talking to people in the community as a way of better understanding a client’s progress and/or needs, however this option was severely limited during the pandemic.

Despite these limitations, some PPOs were still able to perform modified field visits if their agency allowed. Some officers conducted “drive-by” home visits, where they would remain in their vehicle and ask the client to come out to the curb or driveway to check in with them. Others would get out of their car and meet with their client outside of their home. These type of adapted home visits were reserved for the highest risk clients, where PPOs felt it was necessary to “get eyes on” their clients to assess how they were doing and/or if they were physically where they should be. Officer Knope articulated this finding in a representative excerpt from fieldnotes:

We do have this thing we are calling “drive-by house checks” to see our clients, socially distanced, we stay in the car, and wear our PPE. We do this for higher risk offenders—it’s actually required for high risk cases (level 4 & 5) and strongly encouraged for level 3s [moderate risk clients].

The following fieldnote from PPO Stephenson further reiterated these innovations:

For the high-risk caseloads, we were still making home field visits, but we would call ahead and instruct the probationer to be outside and to stay a safe distance away. We used these field visits to verify residence and make sure probationers were still at location they were supposed to be.

Officers articulated the importance of sustaining contact with clients especially among individuals who were perceived to be the greatest threat to public safety (e.g., highest risk). In these situations, PPOs would focus on implementing safety and mitigation protocols as best they could to still allow them to physically see their higher risk clients.

Technology and Remote Supervision

The majority of PPOs described transitioning to a system of virtual supervision which included a variety of new modalities. For example, close to three-quarters of the PPOs interviewed said their agency implemented telecommunication strategies such as FaceTime, Zoom, or smartphone technologies (e.g., Uptrust) in efforts to prevent the spread of the virus and sustain client–officer interactions. Given the circumstances of how COVID-19 spreads, PPOs replaced in-person meetings with video reporting, phone call contacts, and email correspondence. Officer Baker captured how the pandemic shifted supervision practices and ushered in this new paradigm of virtual supervision:

They [the agency] has allowed us to meet with our offenders via electronics, so not having face-to-face contact unless it is needed. Rather, we are using phone, zoom or facetime. These are the biggest things, so we don’t have to be meeting with people and being at risk of getting COVID.

In addition, more than half the PPOs interviewed expressed how the use of technology provided opportunities for continued supervision and rehabilitative support directed toward clients all while adhering to safety protocols. Of these PPOs, roughly 43 percent pronounced that the use of technology via FaceTime, Zoom, or even email provided sustained communication with their clients but also reduced social barriers that people on probation often experience in reporting to the office, in-person. This is captured and detailed by PPO Seaver:

With how our agency has resorted to remote working, it is much easier to have people contact me on their own schedule and this makes a lot of sense as our agency has really pushed employment opportunities so now we are not having people miss work reporting to our office. I can have people just text me and say like hey, I’m on a call now but done in 5 minutes and then we can talk.

Officer Kent echoed this sentiment by describing how remote reporting increased clients ability to comply with reporting requirements. He stated:

We’ve seen a higher instance of reporting . . . because we aren’t having so many office meetings . . . Now we have a direct link with them [probationer], I’m getting more text messages, photos, and more verification from them.

That is, it was a combination of decreased frequency in required contacts in addition to improved access to PPO/client that improved client’s ability to comply with supervision conditions. The shift toward remote supervision techniques granted both officers and clients more avenues to contact one another and enhanced communication. In fact, PPOs linked the added flexibility of remote supervision to an increased ability for clients to remain in compliance.

Responding to Supervision Noncompliance

Prior to the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, a common response to noncompliance involved the formal process of filing violations with the courts. These decisions to file formal violations with the courts were often contingent on several factors including the frequency and severity of noncompliance. Officers often considered whether the noncompliance was a new offense, act of violence, or a technical violation as well as the extent they viewed the behavior as part of a pattern of noncompliance. Officer Bregman discussed this common decision-making process surrounding violations prior to the start of the pandemic:

Honestly, it is really case by case so it would depend on how your clients are doing with probation. For instance, it would not just be the single incident but how they might have been faring on probation in its entirety. So, for any type of [ongoing] noncompliance, I would file with the judge for the client to give their testimony and be able to speak to the client’s progress while on probation.

Officers further described an informal decision-making process where PPOs relied on their discretion about when they would file a motion to revoke with the court. As noted by PO Prince, “if [they are] engaging in violent behavior then law enforcement is going to pick them up for any new criminal behavior.” When PPOs decided not to file a formal motion to revoke with the court, many described using graduated sanctions. Approximately 45% of PPOs reported they relied on a variety of noncustodial, graduated sanctions for technical violations specifically. In these situations, PPOs often responded by increasing drug testing requirements, imposing additional treatment participation sessions, or altering the frequency of meetings. A representative example from PPO Black highlights this finding:

With technical violations—which is not criminal conduct—then the thinking becomes now I am going to error on the side of why should it [the response] be jail. And those are mainly going to be for technical violations, dirty drug testing so I might resort to increase testing, higher level of treatment, and making the probationer have more contacts.

Thus, when client noncompliance was not an illegal behavior, PPOs often considered incremental responses first. Some PPOs reported they might also use flash incarceration or short jail stays for clients with sustained patterns of noncompliance. Officers described how the use of jail in this way can serve as a wakeup call to clients that they are not afraid to impose more punitive responses when clients fail to adhere to conditions of supervision.

In summary, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, PPOs relied on supervision tools including risk and need assessments to guide monitoring decisions. When they encountered client noncompliance with supervision conditions (i.e., not a new criminal offense), PPOs used their discretion to determine whether to file a motion to revoke or if they would intervene using alternative sanctions (e.g., increased reporting/contacts and drug testing). Officers reporting having less discretion for more serious noncompliance, repeated noncompliance, and/or new criminal offenses, which more frequently resulted in a motion to revoke and a probation violation hearing with the court. The following section details how PPOs described changes to these processes with the onset of COVID-19.

Impact of COVID-19 on Responses to Noncompliance

The onset of COVID-19 introduced significant changes that impacted how PPOs traditionally responded to noncompliant behaviors. In fact, an overwhelming majority of PPOs (76%) identified that closures of courts and treatment facilities, as well as reduced capacities in correctional facilities including jails, limited their ability to respond to supervision noncompliance and hold clients accountable. For example, because of court closures, judges did not hold formal revocation hearings nor were they signing off on bench warrants, though PPOs indicated exceptions were made for new criminal behavior. Officers talked about how courts were no longer aggressive in responding to noncompliance and requests for bench warrants. Officer Wright further detailed the challenge of court closures for filing violations:

Our courts were closed and there was no real threat of me going to violate a client because courts wouldn’t do anything. I had a couple of people who were supposed to be going to court at the end of March and are still just waiting to be sentenced (as of July 2020).

During the pandemic, PPOs understood that filing a formal motion to revoke was mostly symbolic. There was a wide understanding that the court would either dismiss a filing or would assign a court date very far in the future, resulting in a lack of certainty and celerity for responding to supervision noncompliance. As a result, some PPOs discussed how they began to file fewer violations. The example from PPO McQueen illustrates this finding:

We really tried to hold off on filing violations. If we did file, we would set it out in the future, further than what we normally would and we didn’t really do any warrants unless it was something very, very serious.

Even when supervision clients were arrested, PPOs noted how such violations were being delayed or going unchecked altogether. Officer Long further discussed the limitations on the use of incarceration:

We cannot incarcerate our clients for violations at all anymore. With the COVID situation, our jail reduced their numbers to 50 even though it can hold 200. They released 60 people from custody that were a month or two off their release date. They were sent to probation/parole or they were finished and went back to family.

In fact, the majority of PPOs noted the limited ability to use incarceration as a response to violations was a significant challenge. As jails and prisons implemented measures to help contain the spread of COVID and reduce the transmission of the virus (Marcum, 2020), many took steps to reduce their population numbers by reducing already housed individuals or by accepting fewer new intakes. This impacted the work of PPOs as they reported a lesser ability to threaten or use incarceration to respond to noncompliant behaviors. Officers discussed how clients were aware of these changes and as a result PPOs perceived that clients knew there would be no serious repercussions for noncompliant behaviors. The following representative example from PPO Munson illustrates this finding:

Some of our jails actually shut down and would only take in violent offenders where there was a victim involved but that meant the jail was not going to take a probation violation even if they had a warrant out for absconding. This has all been really frustrating because it takes away even a little bit of accountability to help stop behavioral patterns even if just in the short run.

Officers noted that while they might have normally relied on flash incarcerations to respond to noncompliance, COVID-19 impacted these decision-making processes. In fact, closures to jails and treatment service providers manifested into greater PPO frustrations, leading some to question their ability to ensure public safety. Many PPOs expressed great concern about whether they were adequately supervising their clients, addressing their needs, or holding individuals accountable for their behaviors. Officers Styles and Smith emphasized,

We cannot do anything with our people [clients]—we can’t really arrest anyone, the courts are for the most part closed, and we can’t do any violations unless it’s a risk to society. Meaning it was a rape or murder.

It’s impacted it [the pandemic] pretty big . . . As far as clients violating, I feel kind of helpless. Substance abuse treatment was closed for a while so they couldn’t even go into treatment. Finally, they opened a web treatment group, but I don’t feel it is effective with these guys at all.

As illustrated above, PPOs were not only limited from responding to noncompliance punitively, but similar closures or reduced capacities in community-based treatment programs also limited their response options. The inability to punish via court, arrests, or incarceration or to intervene via treatment led PPOs to believe they could not hold clients accountable, support and address client criminogenic needs, or protect community safety. This resulted in many PPOs feeling they could not fully do their jobs during the pandemic. However, officers did discuss alternative strategies they implemented to respond to noncompliance, including graduated sanctions.

Graduated Sanctions

As a result of limits placed on revocation processes and incarceration-based responses to noncompliance during the pandemic, PPOs leveraged graduated sanctions to maintain a level of client accountability. Both the number of PPOs and the situations in which PPOs used graduated sanctions increased during the pandemic, especially for addressing technical violations. In particular, PPOs acknowledged a myriad of graduated sanctions in responding to client noncompliance including increasing the frequency of client contacts and electronic monitoring. Officers were quick to note that such responses largely involved more minor, technical violations such as clients presenting dirty drug tests, missed appointments, or violations of curfew orders. Officer Hammond provides an illustrative account:

I have some people that are just messing up. Nothing blatant or criminal, just conditions of supervision. Like, not complying with curfew. When this happens, I just increase their contact with me and they have to talk with me more frequently than they were used to.

That is, as PPOs grew increasingly aware of the inability to rely on formal responses (e.g., via the courts or incarceration), they began to use alternative strategies for minor infractions. For example, the most common graduated sanctions implemented across the sample were increasing contact requirements, increasing use of verbal reprimands/home work assignments, electronic monitoring, or referring clients to treatment programming (often virtual during the pandemic). In fact, some PPOs believed electronic monitoring represented the only or even the most effective response option to track client movements during the pandemic. Comments from PPO Stephenson captured such sentiments:

I have placed some people on GPS monitors for drugs because of their continued behavior. We tried to scare them into thinking that we are tracking their every movement, we’ll know if you are going to a location you shouldn’t be. Really, its [pandemic] made us have to change some of our approaches because typically you wouldn’t be using GPS for drug cases but this is really aimed to help them [clients] get back to where we want them.

However, some agencies had limits on who PPOs could use GPS monitoring with. For example, Officer Styles discussed the policy in this agency:

We would love to use more GPS monitoring but those only go to high risk probationers. So if I have someone on my caseload that needs more supervision, I try to transfer them back to high risk, say when they have a new booking or charge . . . And my supervisor is actually very good if I transferred case to higher risk. I don’t want that call from the chief like, why is this guy on your caseload who ended up killing another person.

In this example, PPO Styles discussed how they worked around formal agency policy to have clients who do not officially meet the criteria for GPS to be placed on monitoring. This suggests PPOs would over-classify individual clients as a means to better supervise and hold them accountable. The support for electronic monitoring stemmed from both PPO concerns for liability and community safety as well as concerns for client well-being, as with PPO Stephenson and his substance use clients. That is, the combined negative effects resulting from the pandemic—increased unemployment, limited face-to-face treatment options, reduced in-person contact—appeared to manifest in greater PPO concern over whether clients were using drugs and relapsing.

In general, PPOs linked their use of graduated responses to noncompliance with a need to ensure they were doing their job as best they could under the current circumstances. A representative example from PPO Rodriguez illustrates this finding:

The way I figured, I was like how can I make sure I am doing my part over here, I increased reporting, increased phone call check-ins, we did a bunch more drug patches, they know they have a patch on them, but in reality it’s been a lot more of me myself checking in on them.

Other PPOs linked their use of GPS and electronic monitoring as a sanction response to ease concerns they not fulfilling their role as supervision officers. These PPOs, which were close to one-third of the current sample, believed that the use of threats, incarceration, and electronic monitoring were most effective for holding clients accountable. The majority of these PPOs suggested that GPS/electronic monitoring served as an effective method to hold clients accountable during the pandemic. Officer Hope provided the following narrative:

GPS monitoring . . . I think not only because they don’t like it but also we can see how they are spending their times, see what neighborhoods they are hanging out in, [if] criminal associates [are] in the locations they are visiting so then that opens it up to a bigger discussion that we can use to hold them accountable about how they are spending their time . . . It shows them that it is not a random sanction, like we are actually looking at how you are spending your time and aware of what you are doing.

Officers discussed how the use of GPS helped alleviate concerns about whether their clients were associating with antisocial peers or venturing into risky neighborhoods that could jeopardize supervision success. Some PPOs argued that everyone under supervision should be on electronic monitoring during the pandemic, especially those who were released from incarceration early or for those who normally would have been on pretrial detention.

Most Effective Responses During COVID-19 Pandemic

While PPOs discussed engaging in a range of strategies to monitor and respond to noncompliance, we wanted to understand what PPOs perceived to be the most effective practices for holding clients accountable during the pandemic. The most common practice supported by PPOs was strong communication with their clients. Officer Alice explained why communication was so important:

Probably just communicating with them [clients] on a more frequent basis if they are having issues. You always have people that don’t want to cooperate but so many people have so much going on that they just need more frequent reminders of what they need to do and by when.

Many PPOs felt the best way to ensure accountability was to remain in frequent contact with their clients to both provide support, remind them of their supervision conditions, and make sure they were compliant with those conditions. Officers discussed how their desire to improve communication largely translated into more frequent phone calls, text messages, and client check-ins. Officer Muntean detailed this in the following example:

Communication, that’s got to be it. As long as you can build rapport with clients and they can trust you that’s important. I don’t think there’s one thing or way to hold people accountable . . . I think it’s about communication. If [clients] feel like they can trust you and can tell you things then that’s what matters and is important. That’s why I call them, send them letters, call them again and let them know that just because we can’t or couldn’t meet in the office doesn’t mean that they are on their own.

Officers placed a premium not only on sustaining communication but developing strong relationships with their clients based on a sense of mutual trust. To gather more information and gain a better understanding of what clients were going through while also aiming to hold clients accountable, PPOs also increased collateral contacts made (e.g., contacts with client’s family, teachers, and treatment providers). Representative examples from PPOs Jahnke and Wright provide an example of this finding:

I think maybe by doing all of the collateral contacts that we are doing, that’s holding them accountable because they realize we are talking to everyone about them and they can’t just tell us one thing and then we talk to their parent and it’s false so they realize we are still talking about them and we will figure it out.

The most used tactic is trying to engage the parents to say how is client behaving, are they under the influence, using drugs. I would say it was really about trying to solicit the parents to almost encourage them . . . really help them parent and address those issues at home.

As detailed above, many PPOs believed that engaging in collateral contacts helped ensure a level of accountability by making sure the client knew they were checking up on them while also gathering a more holistic picture of how and what the client was doing.

As PPOs were asked to consider the lasting changes to community supervision including their responses to client noncompliance, many officers reflected on the goals of supervision. Officers mentioned how the onset of the pandemic appeared to revitalize an ongoing national discourse surrounding correctional reform including a continued reduction on the reliance of incarceration and punitive-based response sanctions. Officer Baker detailed how COVID-19 spurred renewed conversations about the future of community supervision with the following statement:

We are going away from using these long-terms sanctions, so for example taking someone out of the population and incarcerating them for 120 days for a substance abuse violation. But [we] realized that is not really effective. I think the pandemic has highlighted these types of things and we needed to move away from sanctions.

As illustrated above, some PPOs appeared to view the pandemic as a unique opportunity to reconsider incarceration as a response to client noncompliance, especially for technical violations or less serious offenses. This sentiment was also supported by PPO Seaver:

I don’t see how it would be appropriate to revert back to violations if we didn’t do anything to address it during COVID. For example, if we are trying to not violate lower type offenses with the goal of really trying to bring down the incarceration rate and we do these measures to stop the spread of COVID, then how can we go back to enforcing some of these behaviors after or once COVID is gone . . . I am not always sure it is always appropriate to send people to jail for minor things, it would be beneficial to everyone—the offenders, the taxpayers, even the public—to maybe keep some of these new changes in place after COVID.

That is, if punitive responses were not necessary during the pandemic, this begs the question of why a return to such responses is warranted. Similarly, Officer Styles articulated how COVID forced PPOs to really consider the range of tools at their disposal beyond knee-jerk reactions to arrest and incarcerate:

Being an old fart, I think some of the new officers are little too quick to want to just cuff and arrest someone. With COVID, it teaches them to be better at evaluating things and I think this is teaching the ones who are little heavier handed how to do that . . . We can be quick to remind them let’s evaluate this situation, yes he’s using drugs, but is he beating his wife, no, that’s an improvement; stop and look; we are supposed to be rehabilitating these people not punishing them.

The pandemic constrained more law enforcement-oriented responses and forced PPOs to think of alternative ways of holding clients accountable. As a result, they had to consider client behavior and possible responses more fully before responding with punitive sanctions. In this sense, the inability for PPOs to use jail and prison as punishment led many officers to question whether incarceration in particular is an appropriate response for noncompliance in general.

Implications

Consistent with Powell and colleagues (2022), our findings suggest the pandemic served as a catalyst for correctional reform. Importantly, PPOs in our study articulated a desire to not go back to the “way things were” prepandemic. While the pandemic forced probation/parole agencies and officers to do things differently than they likely would have without the influence of the pandemic, PPOs noted that this gave them the opportunity to see how things could be done differently. Specifically, they noted that they saw they could do less with clients, particularly with regards to sanctions. Officers noted the potential benefits of continuing use of alternatives to punitive-based sanctions, such as incarceration, for the client and community. These findings underscore recent attempts to develop community corrections guidelines to support a hybrid model of supervision, which found increasing levels of PPO support for rehabilitative practices relative to incarceration and deterrence-based strategies (Mackey et al., 2022). For a system historically rooted in the use of punitive practices (Phelps & Ruhland, 2022), findings from this study may convey a level of optimism to the extent COVID-19 pushes the field of community corrections toward the continued use of effective correctional practices. For example, the RNR framework is widely regarded as an effective model for the delivery of correctional treatment (Bonta & Andrews, 2017; Smith et al., 2009). The “forced” changes made to accommodate the COVID-19 pandemic exemplify the utility of RNR (e.g., prioritizing efforts on higher risk).

Along these lines and consistent with an emerging body of research (Martin & Zettler, 2022; Powell et al., 2022), data reported here demonstrated officer support for the use of video conferencing and virtual supervision. Although we are unable to report on the effectiveness of virtual supervision strategies, empirical research indicates the potential of telehealth services for reducing client drug and substance use (Batastini et al., 2016) and for supervising low risk probation populations (Barnes et al., 2010). Furthermore, PPOs identified how virtual communications could alleviate the barriers associated with supervision requirements, especially among lower risk clients. This may further help reduce the onerous nature of community supervision and overall footprint of surveillance that permeates the lives of people on probation and parole (Vuolo et al., 2022). These are critical areas for the field to continue building off the momentum of change spurred by the pandemic. Future research should prioritize identifying and testing the effectiveness of alternative responses to noncompliance as well as the impact of virtual supervision on outcomes, including the optimal levels of virtual contact and the conditions that remote supervision produce successful supervision outcomes.

Limitations and Future Research

The current study has several limitations. First, given the qualitative nature of our study, our results may not generalize to all probation/parole agency experiences in the United States. Nonetheless, our sample represented 32 unique supervision agencies from 15 U.S. states. However, more research is warranted that incorporates larger and more diverse samples to further explore potential differences in how PPOs implement sanction responses across supervision systems (i.e., juvenile and adult) and geographical locations (i.e., rural, and urban). Second, our study only examined PPOs perceptions of the impact of COVID-19, relying on a single wave of data collected at the onset of the pandemic. Future research should investigate whether such attitudes remained stable over time and as the pandemic progressed. In addition, the current study cannot draw conclusions on whether and how PPO perceptions impacted their behavior in practice. Linking attitudes toward administrative data on PPO and court responses to noncompliance during the pandemic could provide a critical next step in understanding the changes in practice during this time. Finally, we were unable to link PPO perceptions to client data to identify whether the alternative strategies PPOs reported using impacted client supervision outcomes. This represents an important avenue for future research to address. As correctional reform efforts persist, including calls to decarcerate and reduce the net-widening effect of probation and parole, it is critical to understand if innovations in community supervision led to improved client outcomes.