Off Paper

Chief U.S. Probation Officer Connie Smith and Chief U.S. District Judge Ricardo Martinez, both of the Western District of Washington, will discuss the roles of the officer who conducts the presentence investigation and the sentencing judge; individualized sentencing and avoiding unwarranted sentencing disparities; and the importance of taking a science-informed approach in the presentence and sentencing process.

On this episode of Off Paper, host Mark Sherman talks to Dr. Alisha Moreland-Capuia, Kate Desmond, and Keith Murphy, who work together on the Multnomah County Department of Community Justice’s Smart Supervision Project—an effort to gather and use neuroscientific, culturally specific, trauma-informed research and information in the department’s work. Dr. Alisha Moreland-Capuia is an assistant professor of public psychiatry at Oregon Health & Science University, where she directs the Avel Gordly Center for Healing and serves as a subject-matter expert for the Smart Supervision Project team. Kate Desmond is a community justice manager at the Multnomah County Department of Community Justice, where she manages the department’s Gresham office and leads the Smart Supervision Project team. Keith Murphy is a probation administrator in Multnomah County and the lead probation and parole officer on the Smart Supervision Project team.

On this episode of Off Paper, host Mark Sherman talks to Dr. Alisha Moreland-Capuia, Kate Desmond, and Keith Murphy, who work together on the Multnomah County Department of Community Justice’s Smart Supervision Project—an effort to gather and use neuroscientific, culturally specific, trauma-informed research and information in the department’s work.

There are many disciplines and experiences that go into the successful supervision of justice-involved individuals. On this episode of Off Paper, the criminal justice podcast from the FJC, host Mark Sherman talks to an individual whose career weaves together many of those threads. Dr. Robert Kinscherff is a clinical forensic psychologist and attorney with more than thirty years of experience in forensic mental health. He has been a Senior Fellow in Law and Neuroscience at the Project on Law and Applied Neuroscience, a collaboration between the Center for Law, Brain and Behavior at Massachusetts General Hospital and the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy at Harvard Law School. Dr. Kinscherff also has broad governmental experience having held senior state positions in Massachusetts administering in-patient forensic mental health services, juvenile and adult court clinic operations and diversion programs, as well as specialty courts for persons with mental illness and significant addiction, trauma and multi-system involvement. Mark’s discussion with Dr. Kinscherff explores all those facets of his training and experience and his observations regarding important issues in supervising justice-involved individuals. Off Paper: The Criminal Justice Podcast from the FJC focuses on issues of federal criminal justice and, more specifically, how those issues affect probation and pretrial services officers and their clients. When an individual has finished serving any time and successfully completed release requirements, that person is “off paper.”

On this episode of Off Paper, host Mark Sherman talks to Dr. Robert Kinscherff, an individual whose career weaves together many of those threads. Dr. Kinscherff is a clinical forensic psychologist and attorney with more than thirty years of experience in forensic mental health. Mark’s discussion with Dr. Kinscherff explores the many facets of his training and experience and his observations on important issues in supervising justice-involved individuals.

Over the last several years, the federal probation and pretrial services system has shifted its focus from being primarily concerned with monitoring and ensuring the compliance of individuals on pretrial release, probation, or post-incarceration supervised release, to primarily seeking to reduce recidivism by using evidence-based practices in supervision. The probation and pretrial services system helps individuals under community supervision change their behavior to reduce their risk of recidivism through a framework of principles known as the Risk-Need-Responsivity model, or RNR. In 2013, the Probation and Pretrial Services Office of the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts convened a post-conviction supervision working group to help update national policy to align with the RNR framework and evidence-based practices.

This episode of Off Paper features a discussion of the new post-conviction supervision policy and its implications for federal probation departments, their leaders, their officers, their clients, and their communities. Guests include Chief U.S. Probation Officer and Chiefs Advisory Group chair Jonathan Hurtig (New Hampshire), Chief U.S. Probation Officer and Post-Conviction Supervision Working Group chair John Bentley (South Dakota), Deputy Chief Probation Officer and Working Group member Brad Whitley (M.D.N.C.), and Supervisory Probation Administrator Scott VanBenschoten (Administrative Office).

In this episode of Off Paper, Chief Elbert, Assistant Deputy Chief Katherine Tahja (S.D. Iowa), and Professor Matthew DeLisi of Iowa State University discuss the work of the Chiefs Research Group, research projects currently underway in several districts, and the role of empirical research generally in federal probation and pretrial practice.

Evidence based practice in probation and pretrial mandates that practitioners use the best available research findings to carry out their duties as investigators and supervise their justice-involved clients. While criminologists have conducted research for years that has been crucial to formulating national probation and pretrial services policy it’s only recently that practitioners have used that kind of research locally to improve client outcomes. And with over 100 probation and pretrial offices across the country serving many different kinds of communities, national level research can be of limited help to officers at the district level. For that reason a group of Chiefs – led by Dr. Michael Elbert in the Southern District of Iowa – formed the Chiefs Research Group in 2015. Its purpose is to engage in “empirical examination of district-level data to generate the best available evidence to inform local policies impacting public safety and recidivism.” This grassroots group has grown rapidly in just three years. It’s most recent meeting attracted more than 30 people from both the probation and pretrial system and the academic research community, to discuss district-based projects on topics as diverse as sex offender supervision, problem solving courts, officer resilience and more. In this episode of Off Paper, Chief Elbert, Assistant Deputy Chief Katherine Tahja (S.D. Iowa), and Professor Matthew DeLisi of Iowa State University discuss the work of the Chiefs Research Group, research projects currently underway in several districts, and the role of empirical research generally in federal probation and pretrial practice.

This episode of Off Paper is a conversation with Doug Burris about innovation and leadership in the criminal justice system. Mr. Burris has served for 17 years as the Chief U.S. Probation Officer for the U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Missouri. Burris’s work on issues of living-wage employment for returning citizens has helped the Eastern District of Missouri—which includes the city of St. Louis and the entire eastern portion of the state—to achieve remarkable outcomes for individuals on supervised release. Burris is the first federal Chief Probation Officer to have hired a returning citizen to work in the probation office as a community resources specialist. He is also the first and only federal chief to be a member of the Harvard Kennedy School’s Executive Session on Community Corrections. Burris’s extraordinary leadership has been recognized by the White House, the Department of Justice, the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, and many other federal, state, and local governmental and nongovernmental organizations.

This episode of Off Paper is a conversation with Doug Burris about innovation and leadership in the criminal justice system. Mr. Burris has served for 17 years as the Chief U.S. Probation Officer for the U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Missouri.

This first episode of Off Paper is a conversation with Dr. Guy Bourgon, a clinical psychologist specializing in corrections and criminal justice, and the coleader for Canada's Strategic Training Initiative in Community Supervision (STICS). Dr. Bourgon is recognized for translating research into useful and practical concepts that enhance skills and techniques for promoting client engagement and facilitating prosocial change.

The Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibits the government from requiring a criminal defendant to pay "excessive bail" in order to get out of jail before trial. Nevertheless, nearly half a million people across the country are in pretrial detention.

The Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibits the government from requiring a criminal defendant to pay "excessive bail" in order to get out of jail before trial. Nevertheless, nearly half a million people across the country are in pretrial detention.

Holistic indigent defense tries to solve underlying social and environmental problems that may have contributed to an offender's involvement in crime. It does this by emphasizing interdisciplinary teamwork, partnership with other criminal justice stakeholders, and identification and mitigation of collateral consequences. In this episode of Off Paper host Mark Sherman talks to Maureen Scott Franco, the Federal Defender in the Western District of Texas, and Kathy Nester, the Federal Defender for the District of Utah, about holistic indigent defense and the programs they have created in their districts to pursue its goals and benefits.