Effective Practices in Community Supervision (EPICS)
Problems addressed
Low social–emotional competences
Effectiveness

Promising

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Promising

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Life periods served
Adults (18 to 59 years)
Where the program was applied
Prisons or socio-educational residential centers
Community (streets or community centers)
Country of application
United States
Description

This is a coaching training for community supervision police officers. The aim is to teach how to translate the principles of effective action into practice and how to apply basic correctional practices in direct interactions with offenders.
The training seeks to increase the effectiveness of community supervision using the three components of the Risk, Demand, and Responsiveness model:
1) Risk: the intensity of police intervention should be equivalent to the risk posed by the offender, focusing on higher-risk offenders.
2) Demand: police intervention must address the factors that stimulate and promote crime and that can be transformed in order to reduce recidivism.
3) Responsiveness: individualized cognitive behavioral treatment should be offered to offenders so that the effect of the correctional program is enhanced.
The program includes 24 coaching sessions and 3 days of training.

Impact evaluations

An impact evaluation showed that police officers who received the intervention had greater use of essential correctional skills, such as adherence to anti-criminal modeling, problem-solving, structured learning, cognitive restructuring, and relational skills when compared to the control group, which did not receive the intervention [1].

Bibliographic reference

[1] Labrecque, R. M. & Smith, P. (2015). Does Training and Coaching Matter? An 18-Month Evaluation of a Community Supervision Model. Victims & Offenders, 12(2), 233–252. https://doi.org/10.1080/15564886.2015.1013234

Information source