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More than 1,000 people had their probation revoked in 2014, adding to the prison population and driving up costs, according to new research by the Council of State Governments Justice Center.
The Incarceration Issues Committee heard reasons for those revocations on Tuesday: Some quit showing up to see a probation officer, some continued using drugs, and some committed new crimes.
The 16-person committee is charged with studying the state's criminal justice system and potential reforms during the interim session.
Chief Justice Gerald VandeWalle said much of the public would hear about the probation revocations and ask: "If they are going to fail, shouldn't they have been in prison anyway?"
But researchers from the Justice Center said failures in probation indicate North Dakota could improve how it supervises people in the community.
In the current environment, probation and parole officers lack the resources they need to supervise people effectively, said Katie Mosehauer, project manager at the Justice Center.
Ready access to county jails asl well as treatment for substance abuse and mental health help people succeed with community supervision, she explained in an interview. But the jails are too full to take people for short, punitive sanctions. Treatment, if available at all, often requires a long wait.
Probation officers are aware of the lack of options. A survey of officers found that 22 percent were "not confident at all" that they could hold people accountable for technical violations. As a result, officers said they recommended about one-third of their caseloads for revocation each year.
Thirty-eight percent of those admitted to prison in 2014 had violated probation or parole, the researchers found. Probation violators typically serve more than a year. Drug and property crimes accounted for an additional 33 percent of prison admissions.
Frank Racek, the presiding judge in the East Central Judicial District, said that when probation officers ask for a revocation, it is because they have already tried everything else.
"There is nothing more we can do," he said of those cases.
Compared to other states, North Dakota uses probation sparingly for felony offenses. Nineteen percent of the state's felony offenders were sentenced to probation, compared with a national average of 27 percent in 2014.
Mosehauer said probation could be used for lower-level felonies, thereby helping the state avoid an additional $485 million in anticipated prison spending over the next 10 years.
Steve Allen, a senior policy adviser with the Justice Center, laid out options to the committee for improving probation procedures.
Allen said higher-risk offenders should get priority access to treatment. He also recommended implementing community-based cognitive behavioral therapy targeted at changing criminal patterns of thinking. Space also needs to be opened in the jails so people can serve short and swift sentences for probation violations, he said.
Mosehauer acknowledged that getting the needed services to parts of North Dakota will be a challenge. The team is brainstorming telemedicine, mobile care and opportunities to build a clinical staff, she said.
"The perception is the reality in terms of the level of access," she said.
Reach Caroline Grueskin at 701-250-8225 or at caroline.grueskin@bismarcktribune.com
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