Sanctions

• Sanctions rely on coercion.
  • Coercion is defined as the “act or process of persuading someone forcefully to do something that they do not want to do” (Collins Dictionary). It often involves threats or intimidation.
  • In the context of probation and parole, coercion can appear as POs presenting clients with an ultimatum: either they change their behavior, or they will receive a sanction. In this case, the threat of the sanction is used to motivate the client to change their behavior.
• While similar, coercion and accountability mechanisms are different.
  • Coercion is done for the purpose of inducing behavior change in clients. Accountability mechanisms ensure that the client has changed their behavior; if the client has not changed, sanctions (often involving incapacitation to keep the client from harming others) may be applied.
• There is little evidence of coercion’s effectiveness in changing client behavior in probation and parole settings.
  • Some evaluations have found that sanctions can be effective in changing behavior when they are applied swiftly and certainly in response to noncompliant behavior.
    • These studies have not been replicated widely, and there is evidence that programs using this approach are not more effective than traditional probation.
    • Evidence indicates that incentives to reinforce legal mandates/requirements are more effective than coercion.
  • Open, honest, and respectful relationships between POs and clients are more effective drivers of behavior change than sanctions.
    • To the extent that coercion damages such a relationship (e.g., by making the client resentful toward or distrustful of the PO), it may not create behavior change.
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• Sanctions are used to induce behavior change through threats of punishment for noncompliant behavior.
• A variety of potential sanctions exist in community supervision. These can be jail time, fines, house arrest, electronic monitoring, or verbal reprimand from the PO.
  • POs may be able to use verbal reprimand or other forms of expressing disapproval and disappointment as a sanction.
  • For this to be effective, the PO-client relationship must be strong enough for the client to be invested in the PO’s opinion of them.
    • This may require that the PO refrain from using sanctions too much since this can damage the PO-client relationship (see below).

How Can They Be Used to Monitor Compliance?

• Sanctions should not be used to monitor compliance. It undermines the efforts to engage individuals in behavior change.
• Sanctioning is not the same as boundary setting, where the PO clearly articulates what is considered appropriate behavior. Boundary setting, including informing the individual of what constitutes compliant and noncompliant behavior, is important.

How Can They Be Used as a Supervision Tool?

• While there is little evidence of their effectiveness, sanctions are often used as a supervision tool to change client behavior.
  • Very limited evidence suggests that the threat of swift and certain sanctions in response to noncompliant behavior may be effective in some contexts.
  • Incentives are more effective.

What Are the Costs of Sanctions?

• POs may sometimes need to follow through with threats of sanctions in order to maintain the validity of the threat. In these cases, sanctions cost both the legal system (through costs associated with incarceration, electronic monitoring, etc.) and the client (through fines, time missed at work, etc.)

• Supervision staff report that sanctions are
  • sometimes appropriate for clients classified as medium- to high-risk using a standardized risk assessment tool,
  • never appropriate for low-risk clients who are gang-involved, convicted of general violence offenses, or struggling with substance use disorder, and
  • sometimes appropriate for clients convicted of intimate partner violence or those with serious mental illness.

Client Outcomes

• There is little evidence that sanctions change client behavior.
• Sanctions can contribute to more technical violations.
• In some cases, sanctions may damage the PO-client relationship. This relationship has been found to be a more effective means of changing client behavior.

Is Sanctioning an Evidence-Based Practice?

• No. While studies have found certain sanction-based models of supervision to be effective, wide-scale replication of these studies has not found them to be any more effective than traditional probation.

What Do People Formerly Involved in the Criminal Legal System Think About Sanctions?

• People formerly involved in the criminal legal system (the “criminal justice” or “legal” system will be referred to as the criminal legal system in this document) generally find coercion to be inappropriate for clients classified as low risk using a standardized risk assessment tool.
• People formerly involved in the criminal legal system report that coercion is sometimes appropriate for clients classified as medium- to high-risk, except for those convicted of general violence offenses, for whom coercion is never appropriate.

Communication That Reinforces Officers’ Role as Change Agent

• If sanctions are used, it is important that the officer explain that they are being used to encourage the client to change their behavior, not to continuously punish them.
  • But, in general, coercive relationships undermine any attempts by the officer to portray themself as a change agent.
  • Officers should explain at the beginning of supervision and throughout what is considered compliant and noncompliant behavior. Recognizing that the person is in compliance throughout supervision can be an effective tool in managing individuals.