Chair Rosalyn Cotton is pleased to announce that the Nebraska Board of Parole and Division of Parole Supervision (NBOP/DPS) was recently awarded grant funding for the Bureau of Justice Assistance FY 19 Innovations in Supervision Initiative: Building Capacity to Create Safer Communities. These awards will provide opportunities for community corrections agencies across the country to increase their ability to assist in the reduction of crimes committed by individuals supervised in the community on parole and probation.
NBOP/DPS was awarded $553,445 for a total of 4 years, from October 1, 2019, to September 30, 2023. The funds will be used to develop a violence-reduction aftercare program and cognitive-behavioral interventions (CBI) groups across the state. CBI groups will maintain an open group structure with the aim of reducing the recidivism rate of high-risk parole clients and in particular those identified as likely to reoffend violently and those who previously have not been successful on community supervision.
Numerous initiatives have been undertaken since the Division of Parole Supervision was placed under the Board of Parole on July 1, 2016. Most recently focus has been on the expansion of programming related to criminogenic needs of parole clients. Earlier this year, the leadership at NBOP/DPS reviewed parole outcomes for inmates who had completed the Violence Reduction Program (VRP) while in prison; VRP is an evidence-based program which was developed to reduce the likelihood of inmates who are high risk for reoffending violently. The findings pointed to a need for the agency to develop evidence-based community supervision programs that target violent reoffending since programming has generally been limited to anger management, batterers intervention, and life skills courses or programs. A review of the outcomes also pointed to a small proportion of parole clients driving revocations and failing supervision, making it clear that more needs to be done to address the criminogenic needs of high-risk repeat clients.
NBOP/DPS has been working with clinicians since 2018 to administer programming for parole clients. Contracting with these clinicians allows the agency to serve those at the highest risk to reoffend and those who have repeatedly been unsuccessful on parole. Work has already begun to develop the VRP aftercare pilot program, the first of its kind in the nation, with the assistance of Dr. Stephen Wong and Dr. Audrey Gordon, the creators of the VRP program for the prison system mentioned previously. In addition, planning and development have already begun to create curriculum and standards for an open structure CBI group pilot program which will allow clients to join groups upon being released to parole supervision rather than having to wait several weeks until a new group has openings.
“These initiatives have the full support of the Nebraska Board of Parole,” said Cotton. “This grant will allow the agency to fully implement and test these pilot programs. It will also provide the lead time needed to plan for future budget requests should evaluation of the programs show them to be successful.”
Plans are to launch the open structure CBI group program on April 1, 2020, in Lincoln and Omaha. If successful, it can be replicated in other locations in the state. The VRP aftercare program is planned to launch by summer 2020. If successful, this program may serve as a nationwide model for community supervision agencies across the county.