Many probation agencies, monitoring both adult and juvenile offenders, lack even basic data like addresses and phone numbers.
Suffolk County, whose social service and probation agencies referred three girls to the home, has also barred further placements there.
One recent study found that in 1998 fewer than one in 20 people who worked for probation agencies ever actually spent time supervising felony probationers on the streets.
Others walk away: in 1990, with a probation population a third smaller than what we have now, probation agencies had lost track of a quarter-million "absconders" -- people still under sentence but not reporting in.
Among law enforcement officials, politicians and experts on criminal justice, it is a risky issue, because the Boston model, emphasizing creative partnerships among agencies like the police force and probation agencies, offers a distinct contrast to the other most successful crime-fighting strategy of the 1990's, that of New York City.
Presently, few organizations collaborate with parole and probation agencies at the federal, state, or county levels (Frazier 2008).
This study engages multiple probation agencies in a Plan-Do-Study-Act process to facilitate local adaptation of the contingency management framework and its deployment in their settings.
However, research has found that only about 60% of juvenile probation agencies screen all youth for substance involvement, and even fewer provide comprehensive assessment or help youth enroll in substance use treatment.
The project data collection includes individual-level client data and organizational and staff data to assess the implementation of the CM in five probation agencies through three periods: inception, implementation and sustainability.
