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A new Web site was, ExpertBail.com, was launched by AIA, so users can search for a bail agent by city, state or zip code everywhere commercial surety bail can be written and obtain valuable information on how the bail process works. Approximately two million defendants are released through commercial bail agents each year.
Access the Web site here.
Use the Crime Report for more information on bail.
The Atlantic explores the world of GPS tracking devices for convicts, concluding that they look like an appealing alternative to conventional incarceration, as it becomes ever clearer that, in the U.S. at least, traditional prison has become more or less synonymous with failed prison. By almost any metric, says the magazine, “our practice of locking large numbers of people behind bars has proved at best ineffective and at worst a national disgrace.” (more…)
As pressures build to reduce the “mass incarceration” in the United States, more attention should be paid to “starved probation and parole resources,” contends William Burrell, former New Jersey probation and parole official. Speaking yesterday to an American Probation and Parole Association conference in Washington, D.C., Burrell said that about 70 percent of government spending on corrections and only about 12 percent to probation and parole even though probation and parole agents handle high caseloads. The probation staff in Sacramento County, Ca., is facing a 50 percent cutback. (more…)
In my last post, I raised the following question: How do we address the growing population of incarcerated individuals with mental illness?
One approach gaining popularity around the country is the idea of “specialized caseloads” for parole officers. Practically, what this means is that parolees with mental illness are assigned to parole officers who have received training on how to best manage this population and carry a reduced caseload.
| Aug |
| 15 |
| 8:00 am |
Annual Training Institute
American Probation and Parole Institute
August 15—18, 2010
Washington, D.C. Hilton
Massachusetts probation department staffers were reported sick more than 11,000 days last year – the equivalent of 30 years – in a workplace epidemic that has private sector leaders shaking their heads in disbelief, reports the Boston Herald. As state legislators mull what to do with the troubled department, taxpayers paid for 11,165 sick days for probation officers last year – an average of nearly 12.5 days each. That’s more than twice the amount used by the average American worker and higher than probation departments in other states. (more…)
