Speakers
Parallel Workshops
Approximately 2.9 million people in the United States are under probation supervision, a number that far exceeds those in prisons, jails, or on parole. Yet, there has been limited research and policy attention to the practice. Existing research has primarily focused on risk-assessment centering deficit-focused frameworks. However, there is growing interest in academic and practitioner communities to incorporate more strengths-based and wellness-focused approaches to probation. This presentation reports short-term findings from a randomized-control trial (RCT) conducted in partnership with a large U.S. probation department. Individuals in the treatment group completed a short set of wellness questions as a cost-effective behavioral nudge at the start of each probation meeting with the goal of prompting reflection and priming the meeting for both those on probation and probation officers. Findings will be discussed in the context of reported wellness among those on probation, connections between wellness and more traditional probation metrics (e.g., supervision violations and recidivism), and changes in relationships between probation officers and their clients.