Poster #63 - Parole Board Decision Making: The Use of Recidivism Risk Assessments to Make Release Decisions

• In Event: Poster Session I (posters 1 - 79)

Abstract

Most people in U.S. prisons are conditionally released before the end of their sentence for a period of community supervision – known as parole – intended to improve their likelihood of success during reentry. The use of risk assessment tools has become a common practice among the entities charged with making parole release decisions. Prisoner Review Boards, responsible for most parole decision making, are given broad powers in deciding who will be paroled. Yet, board members are commonly appointed by a state governor and receive little-to-no training in the use of evidence-based practices like risk assessments that assess recidivism and public safety risk. To date, scholarship and academic discourse has focused little on parole board processes and potential biases that can exist. The poster presents findings from a meta-analysis examining the effectiveness of parole risk assessment tools for predicting recidivism. Drawing from 26 studies, we find wide variation in the risk assessment tools used and their predictive performance, as well as discretionary decisions in the parole process.

Authors

• Dulce Alfaro, DePaul University

• Paisley Demer, DePaul University

• Baylee Allen-Flores, DePaul University

• Kayla Freemon, DePaul University

• Xavier Perez, DePaul University