Emerging adults present an array of developmental needs that community supervision agencies should address to improve outcomes including impulsivity, inability to regulate emotions, and being less likely to consider future consequences of their behavior. This study used a randomized controlled trial (RCT) to evaluate the Hidalgo County Emerging Adult Strategy (HCEAS), a specialized caseload for emerging adults using principles of goal setting, incentives, and identity and relationship formation. This study examines how HCEAS influences progress on stability measures and probation outcomes, and how stability measure progress affects probation success. Analyses showed that HCEAS was effective in increasing either within- or between-group progress for every stability measure except education. HCEAS decreased outcomes such as arrests, motions to revoke, and failures to appear for probation office visits. These outcomes suggest that an age-specific focus on stability factors is feasible during supervision and likely to result in improved outcomes.
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Probation outcomes examined in research question two measure participants’ behaviors (i.e. MTR, FTA, absconding) and the criminal legal system’s responses to participant’s behaviors (i.e. arrests and revocations). The HCEAS group proved to be significantly more successful in select behavior- and response-based outcomes. Taken in part with the fact that HCEAS participants progressed more than the control group in key stability factors, it may be reasonable to conclude that the HCEAS had a largely positive effect on EA’s experiences during their probation sentences. However, since the HCEAS participants were not more successful in avoiding revocations – the primary measure of success in probation – the question of whether HCEAS is effective in improving probation outcomes for EA remains. Although the treatment group had significantly fewer MTRs than the control group, the treatment group obtained more revocation than the control group overall (see Table 3). This could be because the HCEAS program uses a specialty court and therefore, processes cases and MTRs more quickly than the standard court. With additional follow-up time, the difference in revocation rates could diminish or disappear entirely.
Part of this is a challenge of how success is measured in corrections. If a dichotomous measure of recidivism (i.e., arrest, revocation) is the only outcome used to assess success in probation, any progress toward desistance and a conventional lifestyle are undermined. Desistance is a process that anticipates a certain amount of “failure” along the way to complete cessation of criminality and criminal conduct (Rocque, 2021). If only revocations were examined, it would look as if the HCEAS was entirely ineffective. But if measures of stability and other outcomes (e.g., arrests, MTR, FTA) are included in what is deemed successful, the HCEAS was at least partially effective. Future research should continue parsing out how recidivism and success are defined in corrections, as well as considering how we can more effectively translate intermediate progress into sustained success in probation outcomes. The results from this study raise the concern that there is a disconnect between participants behaviors and participants outcomes. Future research should further explore the source of this disconnect – whether it be that POs are misjudging progress, inappropriately applied arrests and revocations, or some other cause.