Working together?: An examination of the working relationship between probation officers and probationers.

• In Event: Improving Outcomes in Correctional Populations

Abstract

The MAPIT study is a multisite randomized controlled trial working with probationers to examine the impact in-person motivational interviewing (MI) versus a motivational computer program (MC) versus treatment as usual (SAU) has on probationer initiation in substance use treatment. Probationers followed over a 6-month period report on the Working Alliance (WA) between themselves and their probation officer. This study seeks to conduct a preliminary reliability and item analysis on several items of the WA related to the latent construct of compassion. The WA has the ability to elicit strong responses in many probationers with some thinking their PO’s always care for them, while others think they never do. This, in turn, is related to how probationers fair in terms of drug use, being arrested, and initiating treatment. Ordinal logistic regression (OLR) will be used to determine whether a number of independent variables, including age, gender, race, drug use, arrest, and treatment initiation predict whether a probationers PO cares for them as a person by each study arm (e.g., MI; MC; SAU). We hypothesize that probationers who demonstrate more compassion with their PO’s will have less drug use, arrests, and be more likely to initiate treatment. We further discuss policy implications.

Authors

• Lincoln Sloas, George Mason University

• Jennifer Lerch, George Mason University

• Faye Taxman, George Mason University