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Methods
A web-based survey of the APPA membership was conducted . Several specific steps were taken to develop the sample of probation and parole officers used in this article . The survey was linked to the bi-weekly electronic distribution of APPA ’ s newsletter , CC Headlines . CC Headlines is distributed via email to approximately 1,500 individuals and agencies combined . There is space in this newsletter to include a link to a web-based survey .
Approximately one week before disseminating the survey , a pre-notice was emailed to the CC Headlines mailing list . The pre-notice described the importance of the topic and the need for APPA to receive information on workload allocation . After the first survey distribution , 130 completed questionnaires were returned . Two subsequent requests produced a total of 240 responses . After eliminating responses due to errors ( e . g ., missing information , duplicate submissions ), the total number of responses was 228 ( for more information on Internet survey methods , see Schaefer & Dillman , 1998 ). The survey was divided into three sections ( demographics , workload and caseload allocation , and sex offender and other high-risk supervision ). The quantitative data is reported on elsewhere ( see DeMichele , Paparozzi , & Payne , unpublished manuscript ).
Sample
This survey was intended to gather exploratory data about current community corrections practices . As Table 1 reveals , respondents were predominantly affiliated with probation departments , accounting for 56 percent ( n = 129 ) of all respondents . Nearly one-third ( n = 70 ) of respondents indicated working in combined agencies serving probation and parole functions , five percent ( n = 12 ) were in parole agencies , and seven percent ( n = 17 ) worked in an “ other ” type of agency . These descriptive items revealed that the bulk of respondents worked in rather large jurisdictions , with nearly half of respondents ( n = 110 ) serving jurisdictions of 300,000 or more . Twenty-nine percent of respondents ( n = 68 ) work in jurisdictions with between 75,000 and 300,000 residents . Other respondents indicated serving smaller jurisdictions with 10 percent ( n = 24 ) serving populations between 30,000 and 75,000 , and 12 percent of respondents ( n = 26 ) work in jurisdictions with less than 10,000 to 30,000 people .
There was little difference in geographic regions in which respondents were employed . In fact , there is a nearly symmetrical distribution of respondents in rural ( n = 60 , 26 percent ), suburban ( n = 61 , 27 percent ), urban ( n = 62 , 27 percent ), and “ other ” jurisdictions ( n = 44 , 19 percent ). The over-representation of respondents serving larger jurisdictions could be related to the webbased nature of the survey , as agencies in smaller jurisdictions may lack computer resources . The number of full-time officers in the agency in which the respondent worked revealed that most agencies were relatively small . Forty percent ( n = 91 ) of respondents worked in agencies with 25 or fewer full-time officers , 16 percent ( n = 36 ) worked in agencies with between 26 and 50 officers , and 14 percent ( n = 31 ) of respondents worked in agencies with between 51 and 100 officers . Nearly a quarter of respondents worked in agencies with a large number of full-time officers , with 19 percent ( n = 43 ) of respondents indicating that their department has more than 200 officers and 8 percent ( n = 19 ) serving in departments with between 101 and 200 fulltime officers ( see table 1 ).
Findings back to top
The open-ended comments were content analyzed to consider general themes that emerged from the probation and parole officials ’ comments . This involved reading all of their comments and inductively developing themes that surfaced consistently across respondents . From this analysis , three themes arose : 1 ) goal ambiguity , 2 ) concerns about funding , and 3 ) evidence-based principles . Each of these themes is addressed below .