Understanding Failure to Maintain Contact Violations - A REPORT FOR THE REDUCING REVOCATIONS CHALLENGE

One of the findings that stood out from the original research was that failure to maintain contact with the probation officer—which is often referred to as absconding in other jurisdictions—was one of the most prevalent violation types, accounting for 29% of probation violations and 23% of revocations. [...] Understanding Failure to Maintain Contact Violations 3 Executive Summary Additional Issue: Warrant Experiences During the Phase 1 study, we learned that one practice in RCCC for responding to failure to maintain violations was to request that the court issue a probation review bench warrant, the primary purpose of which was to re- establish contact with the person on probation. [...] Throughout this report, the findings from the original Reducing Revocations Challenge report are referred to as the “Phase 1 study.” One of the findings that stood out from the original research was that after new criminal behavior, which accounted for 28% of violations and 41% of revocations, failure to maintain contact with the probation officer—which is often re- ferred to as absconding in othe. [...] And I had tried calling the general number a couple of additional times just to find out like, hey, who’s my PO? My intent, of course, was to continue to keep in contact with them at least monthly to let them know what I was doing because I assumed—nobody told me, but I just assumed that kind of is part of the conditions of probation. [...] I didn’t know who to send in- formation in, you know, to at that time, to let probation know that I was doing the things I was supposed to do as a part of my probation agreement.