Making More Time for Positive Change: Moving Combo Reports to Presentence

About the Program

Category: Criminal Justice and Public Safety (Best in Category)

Year: 2021

Field supervision probation officers of the Maricopa County Adult Probation Department (MCAPD) reduce crime and recidivism by supervising individuals on probation and targeting their interventions to reduce risk and foster positive behavioral change. While the primary responsibility is supervision, field officers were also called upon to complete Combination Reports that were court-ordered when a new offense was committed. Combination Reports include components of both presentence investigation and probation violation court reports and required field staff to spend significant time and effort to investigate and compile information for this comprehensive document. In 2019, MCAPD implemented a program to transfer the responsibility for approximately 3,000 annual Combination Reports from the field to the Presentence Investigation Division (PSI) of the MCAPD. This transfer of responsibility leveraged the production-based skillsets, processes, and court-report writing experience of presentence investigation officers which in turn saved time for field officers to focus on the supervision of individuals in the community. Field officers and supervisors each reported saving approximately six hours per month and provided accounts of substantial efficiency improvement. The transition also included electronic submission of Combination Reports, moving away from the paper report, resulting in paper savings, along with support staff time to compile the report.