Dr Lacey Schaefer1
1Griffith University, Mt Gravatt, Australia
Scholars have called for the incorporation of informal social control agents into the community supervision of offenders, although systematic efforts to do so have been slow to come. This project reports on an initial trial of such a practice. In Triple-S: Social Supports in Supervision, probation and parole staff engage in opportunity-reduction tactics by, in part, recruiting and training members of their clients’ social networks who may serve as offender handlers, target guardians, and place managers. A pilot test of the Triple-S model was implemented in a probation and parole office in a large metropolitan area in Australia. This presentation discusses some of the qualitative and quantitative outcomes of evaluations of this new model of supervision. Recommendations for community supervision strategies are discussed, with an emphasis on the role of offenders’ family and friends as potential crime controllers and probation and parole staff as super controllers.
Biography:
Dr Lacey Schaefer is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice and a Research Associate with the Griffith Criminology Institute at Griffith University. She holds research expertise in criminological theory, correctional ideologies, offender supervision, rehabilitation and desistance, and crime prevention.