Probation and parole officer styles of supervision and recidivism in Tennessee

Purpose. This dissertation research attempted to establish that the supervision style of probation and parole officers could affect the recidivism rate while controlling for ten covariate variables. Research Question. The primary research question for this dissertation is do the probation and parole supervision styles of either casework or surveillance have an effect on the recidivism rate? Data and methodology. A survey was administered to the probation and parole officers of Tennessee with a response rate of 66 percent. The survey data was entered into SPSS for ease of analysis. The multivariate statistical method employed in this research was ANCOVA as there was a single primary dependent variable at the interval level and multiple independent and covariate variable at the categorical level. Findings. Ten null hypotheses were constructed in this research to be tested. Analysis of the data revealed findings that failed to reject six and rejected four of the null hypotheses. The variables of high education attainment, race, job experience, and political ideology were shown to be significant at the p \u3c .5 levels. Other variables of age, gender, supervisory position, military service, type of cases supervised, and prior job were found to be not significant. A secondary analysis was conducted on the alternate dependent variable of self-reported recidivism rate and a comparison was made with the actual recidivism rate. The comparison revealed findings indicating significant differences between the analyses of the two dependent variables. Limitations. In this study limitations were evident and discussed including the absence of a specific recidivism rate for each probation and parole officer. Future Studies. Future studies were recommended in the area of establishing a valid and reliable method to determining the supervision style of probation and parole officers