Our Team's Challenge from Salt Lake County
“They just get sucked into the system.” - Probation Case Manager, Criminal Justice Services, Salt Lake County
Complexities in navigating the criminal justice system creates the potential for an individual to become stuck in highly punitive cycles, regardless of any intentions to move beyond incarceration. 61% of jail inmates have prior sentences to probation and 58% of jail inmates have prior sentences to incarceration, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
Ensuring success in Pretrial and Probation services have the potential to keep people from serving jail time over and over. According to the a report by The Council of State Governments Justice Center, 1 out of 3 people on pretrial supervision and 1 out of 2 people on county probation do not fulfill the requirements of their supervision. The full report, Salt Lake County, Utah A County Justice and Behavioral Health Systems Improvement Project, can be found here.
In Norman Fineman’s “The social construction of noncompliance: a study of health care and social service providers in everyday practice” (Sociology of Health & Illness Volume 13, Issue 3, pages 354–374, 2008), “non-compliance” is divided into two categories:
- Unwilling
- Manipulative: sabotage, working the system
- Recalcitrant: rigid, stubborn
- Unable
- Hindered by disabilities: physical, cognitive, chemical dependencies
We seek to create services that assist both clients and case managers to reduce impediments to and create opportunities for success.
