The impact of professional orientations on officers’ supervision behaviors in juvenile and adult community corrections: a multi-agency analysis

ABSTRACT

Early scholarship on community corrections officers suggested that officers’ perceptions of their professional role influences how they carry out supervision. While some research has supported this contention, the studies examining the relationship have provided minimal attention to juvenile probation and parole, rarely considered actual as well as intended supervision behaviors, and analyzed samples with limited generalizability. The present study sought to fill this gap. Data were collected through the use of an online questionnaire from a sample of juvenile and adult probation and parole officers employed in seven different agencies in five states during spring 2015. The study found client type to be a significant predictor of both officer actual and intended behaviors, with juvenile PPOs preferring more frequent surveillance techniques and less frequent rewards for probationer progress toward goals. Professional orientation was also a significant predict of both types of behavior. Implications of these findings are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Juvenile justice
• probation
• parole
• professional orientation
• probation officer behavior
• community corrections

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1. Robustness checks of the multivariate analyses revealed substantively identical results when we removed officers who supervised both adults and juveniles from the sample, thereby comparing officers who only worked with either adults or juveniles. We elected to report the models that included all officers, drawing on full dataset.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Riane M. Bolin

Riane M. Bolin is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Criminal Justice at Radford University. Her primary research interests include issues related to juvenile justice and corrections.

Brandon K. Applegate

Brandon K. Applegate is a Professor in the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of South Carolina. His research examines punishment and rehabilitation policy, correctional treatment, juvenile justice, public views of correctional policies, jail issues, and decision-making among criminal justice professionals. Applegate previously served as President of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences and as President of the Southern Criminal Justice Association.