Development of Evidence-Based Viral Pandemic Guidelines for Community Corrections

在COVID-19大流行期间，社区监督机构（即，审前、缓刑和/或假释）的做法，以实现监督社区个人和减少COVID-19传播的公共安全目标。社区监督机构不得不大幅调整政策，以管理监督接触期间的社会距离，并为个人提供帮助，以实现监督目标。疫情期间最大的挑战之一是缺乏明确一致的指导方针供监管机构使用。该项目结合了基于研究的结果，涉及COVID-19疫情对社区监管机构的影响、客户的经验以及疫情期间的监管人员。这些发现沿着来自多个领域的专家小组的反馈，将用于实现两个主要目标：1）对COVID-19的应对和对社区监管领域的影响进行全面的循证理解;以及2）应用收集到的证据为监管机构制定有实践支持的大流行应对指南。这一努力的价值在于系统地从COVID-19大流行中学习，并为未来的大流行做好准备。总的来说，这些努力将有助于建立一个经验证据知识库和一个供从业人员和机构今后使用的工具包，从而改进知识和做法。本研究基于三个主要的研究问题：1）社区监督机构在COVID-19期间的哪些应对措施是成功的和不成功的？2)在COVID-19期间，监管机构如何应对的短期和长期影响是什么？和3）在应对未来的流行病或紧急情况时，有哪些更好的战略可以实施？我们将采用多阶段方法，包括对三个司法管辖区的回应和回应影响进行研究评估，并与相关领域的专家合作，为两个关键成果提供信息。这些可交付成果包括一个外地成功做法和政策数据库，以及《社区矫正应对病毒大流行的做法准则》。该项目有可能通过使用兰德/加州大学洛杉矶分校模式的全面共识建立过程，扩大在监督领域已经就COVID-19大流行所做的工作。这将确定对社区监督实践的适应，以及这些适应对机构、监督官员和受监督的个人的影响。该项目包括多个视角，并检查流行病应对措施对关键成果的影响，以促进知识，为社区监督领域提供基于证据的工具，并确定可能的改革领域。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

During the COVID-19 pandemic, community supervision agencies (i.e., pretrial, probation and/or parole) adapted practices to address public safety goals for supervising individuals in the community and for reducing the spread of COVID-19. Community supervision agencies had to drastically adapt policies to manage social distancing during supervision contacts and provide assistance to individuals to achieve supervision goals. One of the greatest challenges during the pandemic was the lack of clear and consistent guidelines for supervision agencies to use. This project combines research-based findings about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on community supervision agencies, experiences of clients, and supervision officers during the pandemic. These findings along with feedback from a panel of experts from a variety of fields will be used to achieve two primary goals: 1) development of a comprehensive evidence-based understanding of the response to and impact of COVID-19 on the field of community supervision; and 2) application of the collected evidence to develop empirically-supported pandemic response guidelines for supervision agencies. The value of this effort is to systematically learn from the COVID-19 pandemic and prepare for future pandemics. Collectively, these efforts will improve both knowledge and practice by contributing to developing a knowledgebase of empirical evidence and a toolkit for practitioners and agencies to use in the future. This study is informed by three main research questions: 1) What responses during COVID-19 were successful and unsuccessful in community supervision agencies? 2) What are the short and long-term impacts of how supervision agencies responded during COVID-19?; and 3) What are the better strategies to implement in response to future pandemics or emergency situations? We will use a multi-staged approach involving research evaluation of responses and impact of responses in three jurisdictions and collaboration with experts across relevant fields to inform two key deliverables. These deliverables include a database of successful practices and policies for the field and Practice Guidelines for the Community Corrections Responses to Viral Pandemics. This project has the potential to expand what has already been done on the COVID-19 pandemic in the field of supervision through a comprehensive consensus building process using the RAND/UCLA model. This will identify adaptations to community supervision practice and the impact of those adaptations for agencies, supervision officers, and individuals under supervision. This project includes multiple perspectives and examines the impact of pandemic responses on key outcomes to advance knowledge, inform evidence-based tools for the community supervision field, and identify areas for possible reform.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.