Cyclical Pathways to Probation Violations: Housing, Financial Capabilities, and COVID-19

ABSTRACT

Maintaining a stable residence is a primary requirement of probation compliance. Prior research has spoken to the increase in requirements for people on probation and how they are often tied to financial capability. Using data from in-depth interviews with people on probation and probation staff, our analysis extends extant research by highlighting the unique challenges of finding housing during a historic rise in housing and rental prices in the context of COVID-19. This work furthers research on the role that economic means play in the probation revocation process. Results from the research suggest that housing is a barrier to success on probation, which is further hampered by the lack of employment opportunities available to individuals with felony criminal records. Participants relayed that the lack of affordable housing led to heavy reliance on family members for assistance. Information from staff triangulated their concerns about how compliance was tied to poverty.

KEYWORDS:

• COVID-19
• housing
• probation
• violations

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Other racial groups make up less than 10% of each county’s population and both counties have less than 5% Hispanic or Latino identifying residents.

2. The majority of this group interviewed once, but one person interviewed twice. Each person on probation interviewed had a felony conviction given people with misdemeanor and ordinance convictions are supervised by private probation entities (Huebner & Shannon, 2022). The research team included the third author (the grant PI) and a graduate assistant (first author of the paper) and the fourth and fifth authors served as Co-PIs.

3. Like the group on community supervision, the staff interviews were audio recorded and transcribed verbatim and we gave participants pseudonyms to preserve their anonymity.

4. See RSMO 217.703.

5. See RSMO 213.040.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by a grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation [G-1705-151965].