---
title: "Project Parolee Chronic Offender Problem"
type: "pdf"
year: "2001"
canonical: "/projects/1029"
---
# Project Parolee
# Table of Contents
- [Project Parolee](#project-parolee)
- [Chronic Offender Problem](#chronic-offender-problem)
- [Rapid City Polio Department](#rapid-city-polio-department)
- [Project Parolee](#project-parolee)
- [Project Parolee Executive Summary](#project-parolee-executive-summary)
- [SCANNING:](#scanning)
- [ANALYSIS:](#analysis)
- [RESPONSE:](#response)
- [ASSESSMENT:](#assessment)
- [Project Contact Person(s)](#project-contact-persons)
- [Primary Contact Person](#primary-contact-person)
- [Partner Contact Person](#partner-contact-person)
- [Project Parolee](#project-parolee)
- [Scanning](#scanning)
- [ANALYSIS](#analysis)
- [RESPONSE](#response)
- [- Assuring the fingerprints of all high-risk offenders are entered and classified in the data bank ofAFIX TRACKER system in the Rapid City Police Evidence Section. AFIX TRACKER is a stand alone Automatic Fingerprint Indexing System (AFIS).](#assuring-the-fingerprints-of-all-high-risk-offenders-are-entered-and-classified-in-the-data-bank-ofafix-tracker-system-in-the-rapid-city-police-evidence-section-afix-tracker-is-a-stand-alone-automatic-fingerprint-indexing-system-afis)
- [ASSESSMENT](#assessment)
- [- PRIMARY PROBLEM: Active chronic offenders exist within the community who are prone to committing a substantial number of crimes.](#primary-problem-active-chronic-offenders-exist-within-the-community-who-are-prone-to-committing-a-substantial-number-of-crimes)
- [SUB PROBLEM: What can be done to respond effectively to the primary problem to facilitate identifying, monitoring, and making proactive police contacts with chronic offenders in order to prevent, reduce, or solve crimes?](#sub-problem-what-can-be-done-to-respond-effectively-to-the-primary-problem-to-facilitate-identifying-monitoring-and-making-proactive-police-contacts-with-chronic-offenders-in-order-to-prevent-reduce-or-solve-crimes)
- [Method for Parolee Classification](#method-for-parolee-classification)
- [Early Assessment Findings from Police-Parole Team Proactive Contacts](#early-assessment-findings-from-police-parole-team-proactive-contacts)
- [Assessment of Parole Services increased use by police officers](#assessment-of-parole-services-increased-use-by-police-officers)
- [Early assessment of mapping methods and techniques for monitoring chronic offender parolees.](#early-assessment-of-mapping-methods-and-techniques-for-monitoring-chronic-offender-parolees)
- [Closing Considerations](#closing-considerations)
- [References](#references)
- [Appendix A](#appendix-a)
- [Parolee Risk-Screening Instrument](#parolee-risk-screening-instrument)
- [RUSK-SCREENING INSTRUMENT](#rusk-screening-instrument)
- [Appendix E](#appendix-e)
- [Project Parolee Program Evaluation Survey](#project-parolee-program-evaluation-survey)
- [Thank you for your help !](#thank-you-for-your-help)
## Chronic Offender Problem
### Rapid City Polio Department
| Crime Mapping | Police-Parole Proactive Contacts | Pawnshop Master Name Matching |
| --- | --- | --- |
| AFIS Fingerprint System | Crime Analysis | Chronic Offender Identification & Information Sharing |
# Project Parolee
Chronic Offender Problem
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chief Executive's nomination letter i
Executive Summary ii
Contact Person v
Project Parolee Described
Scanning 1
Analysis 3
Response 4
Assessment 9
- Table I - Project Parolee Impact, Survey of Thirty
Patrol Officers 10-11
- Table II - Proactive Contacts of Chronic
Offender Parolees 13
Closing Considerations 16
Attachments
References 18
Appendix A: Parolee Risk-Screening Instrument A-1
Appendix B: High-Risk Parolee Information Sheet B-1
Appendix C: Standard Parole Regulations C-1
Appendix D: Parolee Mapping D-1
Appendix E: Project Parolee Program Evaluation Survey .... E-1
# Project Parolee Executive Summary
Project Parolee is a chronic offender problem-solving strategy developed in partnership by the Rapid City Police Department and South Dakota Parole Services to resolutely identify, monitor, proactively contact, and when necessary, arrest high-risk parolees for the purpose of preventing and reducing crime.
## SCANNING:
Criminology research supports that a relatively small subgroup of chronic offenders is responsible for a disproportionate amount of crime. The police would obviously benefit by giving more strategic focus on developing a systematic means to monitor the activities of chronic offenders for crime prevention and investigation purposes. The chronic offender problem in most cities remains rather elusive to police in terms of developing a systematic means to identify and effectively monitor active chronic offenders.
Rapid City police officers as individuals are, for the most part, unfamiliar with the substantial subpopulation of individuals who fall into the chronic offenders category. Officers know some chronic offenders by happenstance, or by formally encountering them in the line of duty. The Department has developed a Gang Task Force to better monitor gang members, but most chronic offenders are not included in this effort. In addition, the means to monitor gang members is limited to some street surveillance and basic street contacts.
The Rapid City Police Department became determined to study the chronic offender problem within our city and figure out some practical and effective responses to help reduce and prevent crime. The Department realized that our knowledge and methods about how to deal with the chronic offender problem from an overall strategy standpoint was very limited to traditional policing. The Department's goal was to devise new ways to identify, monitor, and to some degree, to control the chronic offender problem in Rapid City. As a result, the Project Parolee strategy was initiated to systematically better identify chronic offender parolees, to share that information with patrol officers and investigators, and develop methods to monitor these potential offenders.
## ANALYSIS:
Analysis of the problem included a select literature review and self-analysis of current approaches used to deal with chronic offenders within our community. The literature review did provide some seed ideas that fostered developing a closer working relationship with parole. After self-analysis of the problem, it was confirmed that most officers know a very limited number of chronic offenders and vital information about them. It was also clear that besides the specialized Gang Task Force, Drug Task Force, and Sturgis Motorcycle Rally Task Force, the Police Department had no broad strategy for dealing with a chronic offender problem on a patrol officer and investigative level.
The Chief of Staff, Rapid City Police Department, wanting to discuss the chronic offender problem with parole and how a closer working relationship might be mutually
beneficial, contacted the State Parole Services Supervisor. Several problems relating to each organization's dealing with chronic offenders was thoughtfully addressed. The result of the meeting was an agreement to form a strategic partnership among police and parole to monitor and proactively contact high-risk parolees held considerable promise to enhancing both organization's missions.
# RESPONSE:
The Chief of Staff of the Rapid City Police Department assigned the Department's new Community Resource Officer to work with Parole Services to operationally implement the partnership. Several ideas from the analysis were developed into a broad strategy to monitor and proactive contact, and when necessary, to arrest chronic offender parolees. The response included developing six primary methods to monitor high-risk parolees:
- Chronic offender identification and information sharing
- Establishing a Police-Parole Team to make proactive contacts and arrests
- Utilizing AFIS (local automated fingerprint indexing system)
- Mapping high-risk parolees residences and work places
- Crime analysis of unsolved crimes in spatial relationship to parolee residence
- Making weekly pawnshop computer program checks by matching pawn records with a master name listing of high-risk parolees
Project Parolee was initiated in mid December 2000. Each method to monitor chronic offender parolees, to some degree, was implemented, with most methods still evolving. It is understood by experimenting about how to apply the different methods, and considering the results attained, will result in operational adjustments as to the optimal use of each one. These methods for monitoring chronic offenders can improve the ability for the police and parole to systematically watch and proactively contact, and when necessary, arrest chronic offender parolees.
## ASSESSMENT:
The Chief of Staff, Research \& Planning, worked with the Community Resource Officer to collect various data to measure the impact of Project Parolee strategic responses to deal with chronic offender parolees. Early assessment would hopefully gauge any meaningful impact the monitoring methods were having, while at the same time giving feedback about the utility of each method, and how each method might be improved.
The early assessment was very encouraging. Parole Services identified in December approximately 30 high-risk parolees to be assigned as cases to Project Parolee. Other chronic offender parolees were continually added to the list as they entered the community. From mid December through April, there were 38 arrests of chronic offender parolees by police officers. Of the 38 parolee arrested, 17 arrests were the result of proactive contacts made by the newly established Police-Parole Team. The team had made a total of 94 checks, which means $22 \%$ of the team proactive contacts resulted in a high-risk parolee arrest. There were another 2 arrests of people who were simply associating with the parolees during the time of the Police-Parole Team contact,
The remaining 21 parolees arrested were the result of officers being requested by Parole Services to arrest specific parole violators. In sum, the number of increased arrests of high-risk parolees is considered a meaningful impact. The premise is that the arrests made will translate in some significant immeasurable way into crime prevention and reduction.
After one weekly check using the police pawnshop computer program to match pawn records with the master name list of high-risk parolees, out of 30 names checked, 6 were found to have pawned items. Pawning for parolees, without permission, is a parole violation. As such, this method of monitoring parolees resulted in a $20 \%$ match rate.
Thirty patrol officers were surveyed about several questions that dealt with the perceived impact of Project Parolee. The findings were mixed, but generally positive about the new strategy responses to monitor and contact high-risk parolees. Although a substantial number of officers reported they had increased their operational knowledge about chronic offenders parolees since the implementation of the program, there remained several officers who reported no, if little difference. Officers surveyed gave the most favorable ratings for: 1 making police-parole team parole checks; 2 providing officers vital information about chronic offenders over the Department's Intranet; 3 mapping parole residences; and, 4 developing a more effective working relationship with parole.
# Project Contact Person(s)
## Primary Contact Person
Peter Ragnone
Detective/Community Resource Officer
Rapid City Police Department
300 Kansas City Street
Rapid City, South Dakota 57701
Telephone: 605-394-6030
FAX: $\quad 605-394-5864$
E-Mail: peter.ragnone@ci.rapid-city.sd.us
## Partner Contact Person
Richard A. Talley, Ph.D.
Chief of Staff
Rapid City Police Department
300 Kansas City Street
Rapid City, South Dakota 57701
Telephone: 605-394-4133
FAX: $\quad 605-394-5864$
E-Mail: dick.talley@ci.rapid-city.sd.us
# Project Parolee
Project Parolee is a chronic offender problem-solving strategy developed in partnership by the Rapid City Police Department and South Dakota Parole Services to resolutely identify, monitor, proactively contact, and when necessary, arrest high-risk parolees for the purpose of preventing and reducing crime.
## Scanning
Criminology research has supported that chronic repeat offenders, offenders who represent a relatively small percentage of the general population, are responsible for a disproportionate amount of crime. In Marvin Wolfgang's classic study "Birth Cohort II," 27,000 individuals were studied by the means of reviewing police records. Of the individuals studied, $7.5 \%$ were labeled "chronic offenders" based on a police record of five or more arrests. In Wolfgang's study the $7 \%$ chronic offender subgroup accounted for $\mathbf{6 0 \%}$ of total offenses. Of the serious offenses, chronic offenders were responsible for $61 \%$ of homicides, $76 \%$ rapes, $73 \%$ robberies and $65 \%$ of felony assaults 1. The experience of law enforcement agencies would not challenge that it is reasonable to generalize that Wolfgang's findings are likely to be applicable to most other jurisdictions; that is, a small number of chronic offenders represent a substantial percentage of the crime problems in most communities.
Sherman, et al., astute observation stated in Preventing Crime: What Works, What Doesn't, What's Promising, A Report to the United States Congress, 1996, that there appears to be promise in police crime prevention strategies that focus on proactive arrests. He states:
Like directed patrol, proactive (police-initiated) arrests concentrate police resources on a narrow set of high-risk targets. The hypothesis is that a high certainty of arrest for a narrowly set of offenses or offenders will accomplish more than low arrest certainly for a broad range of targets. In recent years the theory has been tested with investigations of four primary high-risk targets: chronic serious offenders, potential robbery suspects, drug market places and arrests, and high-risk places and limes of drunk driving. All but first can be tested by examining the crime rate. The hypothesis about chronic serious offenders is testing by examining the rate at which such offenders are incapacitated by imprisonment from further offending (page 8-6).
Although the general public might believe that the police know who all the chronic serious offenders are in a community, where they live and hang out, and their daily life patterns, this notion is far more myth than reality. It is common that many chronic offenders are transient to an area. Officer contacts with chronic offenders are likely to by happenstance, or simply in the line of duty. However, for police officers to develop effective strategies for making contacts and proactive arrests by targeting chronic offenders, officers will need to focus on becoming operationally cognizant about a number of key chronic offender factors:
- Become very familiar with who the serious chronic offenders are in their patrol area so that they can recognize the target of attention and operationally plan to monitor and make contact.
- Establish priorities by understanding the likely level of risk that each known chronic offender poses to the police officer and public. For example, are they prone to drug usage, drug dealer, burglar, robbery, arson, pedophile, shoplifting, or some other illegal activities.
- Know where the chronic offender lives and hangs out so the officer can readily monitor their daily patterns and plan for proactive contacts.
- Know the places, people, times and situations related to the chronic offender being more predisposed to committing a crime. For example, a chronic burglar traveling late hours in a business area certainly would imply a risk increase that an offense is being planned, or perhaps has occurred: Or, observing chronic offenders actions while in the company of other people who are known as criminal offenders.
The chronic offender factors noted above can be applied by the police to develop effective strategies for monitoring chronic offenders and making proactive contacts and arrests. However, there requires a substantial amount of effort to gather intelligence information about individual chronic offender factors and design a program that operationally puts that information systematically to constructive use by police officers.
The Rapid City Police Department patrol force is made up of approximately 100 well-trained officers. Well-trained officers alone are not enough to expect officers to know who, when and how to target chronic offenders for the purpose of preventing crime and making effective proactive arrests. When considering (scanning) the aforementioned chronic offender factors, there appeared to be an evident problem in the lack of practical knowledge by officers regarding many specific chronic offenders_ The problem was that most patrol officers are not highly cognizant of the existing subgroup of active chronic offenders in our City, nor where they live, hang out and the particular risk each one poses to the police and public. Certainly many RCPD officers are familiar with those few individual chronic offenders they have either arrested, or those offenders highlighted in a periodic gang task force intelligence reports. However, admittedly, there are still many more chronic offenders in our community who officers are not highly familiar with compared to those whom they are. Officers lack sufficient familiarity about chronic offenders to have an operational sense about how to develop a strategic plan to successfully monitor these people for the explicit purpose of preventing crime, or making proactive contacts and arrests.
Where is the best source of chronic offender information? Especially information sources that are dynamic and keep abreast of chronic offender movements in and out of the community, residences, risk that different offenders pose, and places where chronic offenders hang out? The Rapid City Police Department determined that Parole Services is the most relevant agency with this kind of chronic offender information. Although the Rapid City Police Department has enjoyed a good working relationship with Parole Services, the information shared about chronic offenders has traditionally been limited and superficial.
Parole Services in Rapid City supervises approximately 250 adults released from the penitentiary and 100 juveniles under the Department of Corrections. A significant number of parolees under the supervision of Parole Services could be classified as meeting Wolfgang's criteria description of chronic offenders. The main problem, again, is that Rapid City police officers are generally
unfamiliar with all the paroled individuals in the community who are "high-risk," or have a high propensity to commit crimes. Obviously it became clear to the Police Department that Parole Services was the key resource agency having the vital information desired. In addition, Parole Services shared a mutual interest in wanting to better monitor paroled chronic offenders. Discussions about the possibility of increasing the level of the Police Department's working relationship with Parole Services, in terms of sharing information, as well as together physically monitoring and making contact with offenders, resulted in an agreement to form a special project partnership.
Project Parolee was the title given the new working partnership between the Rapid City Police Department and South Dakota Parole Services of Rapid City. The purpose of the police-parole partnership is to promote crime prevention and proactive arrests of recidivist chronic offenders who are on parole status. The project's foremost purpose would be achieved by regular sharing of vital information and resources among the Police Department and Parole Services to better monitor and proactively contact serious parolees living in the community.
The intensive joint focus on paroled chronic offenders will hopefully create a higher deterrence for parolees subsequently hindering recidivism. Creating a higher influence of deterrence might consequently result in more past chronic offenders staying in compliance with parole provisions, and thus, deterring crime. IF increasing the sense of deterrence is effective in hindering parole recidivism, the strategy will facilitate, to some immeasurable degree, crime prevention.
Second, the police-parole strategic partnership focus upon paroled chronic offenders is intended to facilitate making proactive arrests by earlier identification of parole violations, or criminal offenses, thus achieving prompt re-incarceration of chronic offenders. Reducing the days of freedom of parole violators in the community by proactive arrests is conducive to facilitating crime detection, prevention and reduction. It is reasonable to assume that chronic parole offenders who have chosen to violate parole rules are more vulnerable to committing another crime than parolees who remain in parole compliance.
# ANALYSIS
The assumption supported by scanning is that patrol officers and criminal investigators of the Rapid City Police Department are, for the most part, unfamiliar with a significant number of parolees who are high-risk chronic offenders. Officers and investigators who are likely to know specific parolees most likely came about that information during a police call or investigation that they personally handled. Another assumption is that officers who patrol specific neighborhood areas are often not aware of "high-risk" individuals residing, or working, in designated patrol beats (reporting districts). In order to analyze the accuracy of these assumptions, discussions were conducted with police officers, and community policing officers, which affirmed a general lack of critical knowledge about many paroled chronic offenders.
Further analysis supported that high-risk parolees are subject to parole violations and recidivism. According to Parole Services of Rapid City, only about $25 \%$ of parolees that are considered a high-risk are actually successfully discharged from parole. The other $75 \%$ do not comply with the terms of their parole and are therefore re-incarcerated on parole violations. Parolees other
than high-risk show about a $60 \%$ success rate, or in other terms, have over twice the success rate when compared to high-risk parolees. Knowing that three out of four high-risk parolees will likely be caught in violation of parole rules, which may include committing a new crime, does strongly suggest the value for police and investigators to develop a structured program to focus special attention to monitor and proactively contact paroled chronic offenders.
The assumption that Parole Services possessed the critical information about chronic offender factors through analysis also proved to be valid. Information files containing personal information (name, DOB, address, employment, previous offenses, parole restrictions, personality dispositions [i.e. violent when drinking, drug preferences, gang affiliations], etc.) are maintained by Parole Services. Although Parole Services would provide parolee information to police upon request, the critical information about active high-risk parolees was not generally made readily available, or routinely shared. Such vital information was only provided selectively for extremely serious offenders recently returning to the community from prison. Parole Services stated, too, that some parolees do not prudently update residence and workplace changes. Hence, Parole Services records about the exact whereabouts of the parolee residence are not as dependable as they would like them to be.
Reviewing the Police Department's and Parole Services level of sharing of critical information about paroled chronic offenders confirmed a need for a closer working relationship. Prior to the i mplementation of Project Parole, only a very limited amount of information was shared. For example, Parole Services might request the assistance of the police to help make an arrest if a parolee absconded. Until Parole Services asked for police assistance, most officers were unaware of the parolee's existence and situation. Officers generally would lack this critical parolee information even though the chronic offender may have been living in the very neighborhood area that the officer is responsible.
The basic analysis of the primary problem and related assumptions regarding active chronic offenders in the community provided insightful considerations to contemplate for the purpose of constructing an effective police strategic response. One key consideration was the identification of an apparent sub problem confirming that police officers and investigators do not know a significant number of chronic offenders in the community, especially high-risk parolees, was determined to be valid. Neither do officers and investigators have critical information about a substantial number of chronic offenders. In addition, another insightful consideration was identifying Parole Services as a primary resource that has substantial information about parolees that would be beneficial to the police department. The high-risk parolee information shared by Parole Services could be used to facilitate developing an effective operational response to systematically monitor and make proactive contacts and arrests of chronic offenders.
# RESPONSE
After analysis, Project Parolee established a set of strategic objectives to tackle the chronic offender problem by making proactive contacts and arrests. The sub problem became the operational focus of searching for strategies to address the chronic offender problem; that is, addressing the lack of knowledge that officers and investigators have about who the high-risk offenders are, the risk they pose to our community, where they lived or worked, and other means
available for police to better monitor and make proactive contacts and arrests to prevent crime. The scope of strategic objectives to be developed and implemented were:
1. Sharing Information sheets containing personal information and a photograph of each high-risk parolee chronic offender. The supervising parole agent created the information sheet. The document will be kept at the Rapid City Police Department and are to be made readily accessible to sworn officers and support staff.
2. Assuring the fingerprints of all high-risk offenders are entered and classified in the data bank of AFIX TRACKER system in the Rapid City Police Evidence Section. AFIX TRACKER is a stand alone Automatic Fingerprint Indexing System (AFIS).
3. Establishing a special police-parole team consisting of police officers, sheriff deputies and parole agents to make proactive contacts and arrests.
4. Providing periodic informational presentations by parole agents at police briefings about specific paroled chronic offenders.
5. GIS maps are created to show the location of chronic offender parolees' residences and places of employment. Parolees resident and employment map locations template can then be overlaid with map locations points marking unsolved crimes to analyze if there are any apparent spatial relationships worth investigating.
6. Check pawnshop records each week against the Master Name List of chronic offender parolees to monitor possible criminal activity, or other possible parole violations.
- Sharing Information sheets containing personal information and a photograph of each high-risk parolee chronic offender. The supervising parole agent created the information sheet The document will be kept at the Rapid City Police Department and are made readily accessible to sworn officers and support staff.
Due to the large number of active parolees, and their various risk level, it was not practical to create information sheets on all parolees. Some parolees, for example, are not considered serious threats to the community as reflected by their personal criminal history. Project Parolee purpose was to only target "high-risk" offenders. Parole Services classifies the risk of parolees upon release based on factors related to criminal history and the severity of crimes committed. Those parolees classified as "high-risk, or sometimes termed as "intensive," which obtained a Risk Screening Instrument numerical rating of $\mathbf{3 3}$ points were assigned as a Project Parolee case (See Appendix A Risk Screening Instrument). In December 2000, approximately 30 highrisk parolees were assigned as Project Parolee cases. Parolees were added to the program based upon Risk Screening and others dropped due to a parole violation, or successful completion of parole.
Parole Services develops a chronic offender parolee information sheet for the police department on a computer template (See Appendix B -. Information Sheet). The information
sheet contains the high-risk parolee's photograph, name, date of birth, physical description, address, current offense, prior felonies, special parole restrictions, supervising parole agent, date parole expires, and a special comment section where the supervising agent can add additional remarks regarding the individual. Once the information sheet is created, it is immediately forwarded via Intranet e-mail to all police department staff and officers. A hard copy of the parolee information sheet is organized in a binder in the patrol briefing room and another replicate binder in the Criminal Investigations Division.
# - Assuring the fingerprints of all high-risk offenders are entered and classified in the data bank ofAFIX TRACKER system in the Rapid City Police Evidence Section. AFIX TRACKER is a stand alone Automatic Fingerprint Indexing System (AFIS).
AFIX technology is relatively new to the Rapid City Police Department. The AFIX is an independent stand alone automated fingerprint indexing system which was first purchased by the police department to primarily create a database of active local serious juvenile offender fingerprints. The Federal AFIS System does not allow entry of juvenile fingerprints. Serious adult offenders fingerprints, especially burglars, and now Project Parolee cases, are also placed in the local AFIX database.
AFIX technology has only been operational for the past two years with the local serious offender fingerprint database continually increasing. When an individual is arrested in Pennington County (Rapid City), the fingerprint card is completed either by a jail staff, or a juvenile correction officer. The completed fingerprint card is then sent to an evidence fingerprint specialist who processes the print cards according to established criteria for entry into the AFIX database. As part of the fingerprint processing, the evidence specialist classifies and enters the fingerprints into a permanent record in the fingerprint database. The evidence unit routinely uses the fingerprint database to make automated comparison to fingerprints recovered at crime scenes.
Parole Services provided an initial list of thirty parolees classified high-risk who live in the Rapid City community who were assigned as Project Parolee cases. Interestingly, a cross check of these parolee's names with the AFIX fingerprint database surprisingly revealed that only ten (33\%) of the parolee's prints were scanned. However, only one of the parolee's fingerprints had actually been scanned, classified, entered and activated into the database ready for comparison. Since some of the high-risk parolees had been arrested in other counties, or for some other reason, such as being transferred in from another State, the fingerprints were simply not in the police Department's files. Once this oversight had been identified, every high-risk parolee's fingerprints assigned to Project Parolee were collected by either locating the existing fingerprint card, or by reprinting. Assuring chronic offender fingerprints were obtained and entered into the AFIX system was made a high priority.
With the chronic offender parolee prints active in the AFIX database for automated comparison with prints collected from unsolved crimes, the detection of criminal activity by the parolees increased. The obvious objective is to have all chronic offender fingerprints within the automated fingerprint indexing system ready for comparison since they are likely to re-offend.
- Establishing a special police parole team consisting of police officers, sheriff deputies and parole agents to make proactive contacts and arrests.
In the State of South Dakota all parolees must follow standard parole guidelines with rules such as no alcohol/bars, as well as no companions with criminal records (See Appendix C - Parolee Guidelines). Additional rules may be tailored and applied to an individual parolee. For example, a parolee with a gang history can be prohibited from wearing gang colors. Parole agents will routinely conduct checks to assure compliance with the rules and regulations.
One key tactical strategy of Project Parolee is to have a police officer, or an investigator, to team up with a parole agent to conduct after-hour checks on chronic offender parolees_ Conducting joint checks is highly beneficial to both the Police Department and Parole Services. In the process of making contacts, police officers obtain first-hand knowledge about the identity of who the chronic offender parolees are, where they live, work, hang out, associate with, and personal habits. Such knowledge, too, especially becoming familiar with their at-risk behavior and past criminal history, may help in developing suspects in unsolved cases. Knowing the rules parolees must comply with gives the officer investigative and legal leverage in dealing with the person during street contacts.
The parole agent gains some immense advantages by having a police officer present while making a parole check. First, the agent has additional security while conducting checks on high-risk parolees. Security is especially important for South Dakota parole agents, when dealing with potentially violent parolees, since they are not armed with weapons, nor do they have the extensive self-defense training. Parole agents can, therefore, be more reasonably assertive with a police team member in making difficult parole checks.
Parole agents are limited in their investigative powers while making a parole check. Often a parole agent may find the parolee associating with someone they do not know. When a police officer is present during a parole check, this allows the added option for the officer to make an immediate background and warrant check on companions who are in the presence of the parolee. If a companion of a parolee has a criminal history, then the parolee cannot be in their personal company. This scenario can lead to a violation of the standard parole guidelines, resulting in a warning, or possibly resulting in the parolee being incarcerated. The officer sometimes benefits from becoming familiar with suspicious people who indeed may be an active criminal, who they would not have otherwise encountered.
The selected parolees to be checked by the Project Parolee team are intended to be "target specific." For example, on a given night, the parole agent will select all gang members from their caseload to be checked. In such a scenario, the agent is teamed-up with an officer from the police Gang Task Force. The Gang Task Force officer can better identify associates, and/or paraphernalia, when contacting the parolee. Another example is the selection of all burglars from the agent's caseload. The agent can be teamed up with burglary investigator. Or, parolee checks may be chosen according to a specific geographic area. In that instance, a community police officer, or regular patrol officer who works that police reporting area (beat), will be teamed up the parole agent. This manner of select targeting, and select team matching among police and parole, has substantial mutual advantages for those involved by combining one another's experiences, knowledge, and skills to optimize the parole contact.
Another potential value of a police-parole contact of the chronic offender parolee is the possibility of increasing the affect of specific deterrence among those contacted. The parolee, indeed, may sense a higher presence of watchfulness over their daily activities. The extra attention may bring about a new threshold of specific deterrence influence that may inhibit the high-risk parolee from violating parole rules, or even committing a crime. The increased affect of deterrence could enhance the success of some parolees who might otherwise have violated a parole restriction or commit a crime.
- Providing periodic informational presentations by parole agents at police briefings about specific paroled chronic offenders.
Parole agents will make periodic appearances at patrol briefings to provide vital parolee information to the patrol and investigative staff Information updates about new high-risk parolees who come into the County and City's jurisdiction is shared so officers are readily made alert and aware of these people.
Another benefit of the patrol briefings presentation is that police officers and parole agents will become better acquainted with one another. A formal and informal vital information network is formed among the police and parole. Friendships can result from the police-parole partnership leading to higher morale, exchange of more vital information, enticing cross-agency team problem solving, and dismantling walls of perceived stereotypes that can hinder strong working relationships.
- GIS maps are created to show the location of chronic offender parolees' residences and places of employment Parolees resident and employment map locations template can then be overlaid with map locations points marking unsolved crimes to analyze if there are any apparent spatial relationships worth investigating.
Crime mapping holds tremendous promise to further police problem solving strategies such as Project Parolee. Research has supported that crimes often occur in relatively close proximity to the home of the offender (Canter, 1994, pp. 282-283; McIver, 1981, pp. 24-25; Rebscher \& Rohrer, 1991). "While criminals are mobile, they don't seem to go very far in committing a crime. A majority of crimes appear to take place within a mile of the criminal's residence" (McIver, p.22). Other studies have shown that criminals can have secondary anchors besides residence, such as a friend's residence, that are also within a relatively short distance from where the offender is likely to commit a crime. Juvenile offenders are more likely than adults to commit crimes closer to their residence (Baldwin \& Bottoms, 1976, pp. 79-80; Gabor \& Bottheil, 1984, p. 270; Warren et al., 1995, pp.215, 141, 146). Understanding what are the pathways commonly traveled and time patterns of chronic offenders in relation to their residence and employment, or secondary anchors, may provide meaningful leads of criminal involvement.
Other people besides patrol officers can use the monitoring strategy of mapping locations of parolees to analyze apparent spatial relationships between the common whereabouts of chronic offender parolees and unsolved crime. The Department's crime analyst and criminal investigators can use this investigative aid to possibly develop suspect leads for unsolved crimes. For example, using Arc View, a thematic map with a list of parole residence locations points can
be compared by various distances from unsolved crimes. A query can be made to provide a list of parolees that live within a quarter mile, half mile, etc. from a designated point (crime scene).
Project Parolee uses crime mapping as a potential monitoring strategy for spatially linking chronic offender parolees with unsolved crimes, but also it is used to make officers and investigators aware of the parolee's place of residence and employment. Using Arc View crime mapping software, maps are created to display the locations of parolee's residences and places of employment. The map can show the entire city, or specific neighborhood area, and readily display an icon, or a flag, that clearly designates where the high-risk parolees reside and/or work. Through map hot-links, the icon can be "clicked" by the screen viewer and the parolee information sheet immediately appears on the computer screen. All of the patrol cars in Rapid City are equipped with a computer that can allow the officer access to the Arc View maps and parolee information. The map information will aid officers to familiarize themselves with Project Parolee cases in their patrol area, consider that information in respect to discretionary patrol time, as well as helping officers develop possible suspect leads for past unsolved crimes.
- Check pawnshop records each week against the Master Name List of chronic offender parolees to monitor possible criminal activity, or other possible parole violations.
The Rapid City Police Department has a pawn ordinance that requires pawnshops to report pawned items to the police department. The Rapid City Police Department has a computer software program shared with all pawnshop owners. Pawnshop owners are required to record pawn transactions using the police pawn software program. The pawn information is then forwarded to the police department via the Internet. The data can then be analyzed by item or name of those who made the pawn transaction.
The pawn program has been operated for several years. Indeed, it has been said that the pawnshop program is one of the best detectives in the Rapid City Police Department! The pawn program data has been offered to parole agents; however, the system is used sporadically with some parole agents using it more often than others. In the past when the pawn program has been used by parole agents, there have been a number of times parolees have been identified having pawned items, which is a parole rule violation.
Under Project Parolee, the pawnshop program will be systematically utilized to help monitor high-risk parolees. A master name list will be provided to a Rapid City Police Department detective who will check every name once per week against recently pawned items. Parolees are not allowed to pawn items, and as such, pawning is a parole violation. Pawning items can be a significant signal that the parolee is involved in theft, or perhaps is trying to raise cash due to substance abuse problem. The systematic weekly pawnshop monitoring, as part of Project Parolee, was implemented in mid April 2001.
# ASSESSMENT
The total impact of initiating the Project Parolee strategy has not been realized since it was operationally initiated in mid December 2000 with the project still evolving. The early assessment findings are very promising showing some substantial results from intensifying and systematically applying methods to better monitor high-risk parolees. A brief summary of the problems intended to be impacted by Project Parolee include:
- Active chronic offenders exist within the community who are prone to committing a high frequency of crimes, or serious crimes.
- Determining available effective methods for police to identify, monitor and make proactive police contacts with chronic offenders in order to prevent, reduce and solve crimes.
- Developing a high operational awareness among police officers and investigators about who are the high-risk chronic offenders, where they reside and hang out, and the risk they pose.
- The lack of sharing of vital information and resources among the police and parole about high-risk chronic offender parolees that is necessary for increasing their respective effectiveness to prevent, control and solve crime.
First a general evaluation survey administered in mid April to thirty patrol officers over three shifts will be presented in Table I. After presenting the survey findings, each problem will be examined in terms of how the response was developed, methods of assessment, and assessment findings. Other practical problems, such as developing and applying technological tools, will he discussed. The end of the assessment section will cover the plans to further develop and extend the Project Parolee Partnership strategy to hopefully increase its potential positive impact by developing a systematic means to monitor and proactively contact chronic offender parolees.
Table I on the next page summarizes an evaluation survey conducted among thirty patrol officers representing all three shifts. Officers were asked to complete the survey questions regarding the estimated impact of Project Parolee. Officers used a Likert style rating system for the first ten questions: $1=$ strongly disagree; $2=$ disagree; $3=$ neutral; $4=$ agree; and $5=$ strongly agree. Questions 11 and 12 patrol officers gave estimates about how many chronic offender parolees they were reasonably familiar with since implementation and before Project Parolee. Findings are reported by presenting the average rating and standard deviation.
Overall the findings were mixed, with more favorable than unfavorable ratings reflecting that Project Parolee is making an impact. More than half the ratings indicated that officers' strongly agree that the Project Parolee strategy is having a favorable impact regarding several objectives. However, a substantial number of officers' ratings were either neutral, or disagreed, that that the strategy is having an impact. A few officers provided strongly disagree ratings, which skewed the average rating. For being four months into the implementation of Project Parolee, early assessment findings are encouraging. Yet, findings do suggest some adjustments in the strategy implementation are necessary to bring about a broader impact upon developing the an operational knowledge of high-risk parolees among more patrol officers.
Table I
Project Parolee Impact
Survey of Thirty Patrol Officers
1. Project Parolee has made me mom aware about whom the chronic offenders are in our community.
2. The sharing of information from Parole Services at our patrol briefings has been valuable to officers.
3. Periodically assigning police officers and investigators to work with a parole agent, as a team, to Make parole checks or chronic offenders is a worthwhile use of resources.
4. If asked, you would want to serve on the police parole team to make parole checks,
| | Avg. | STD |
| :-- | :--: | --: |
| 3.5 | 1.22 | |
| 3.6 | 1.3 | |
5. Since Project Parolee, officers are more familiar about where chronic offender parolees live within the community and their patrol area.
6. Since Project Parolee, the working relationship among Parole Services and the Police Department has been more effective.
7. Since Project Parolee, I am better aware about whom the parole agents are within Rapid City.
8. The parolee chronic offender resource book made available in the patrol briefing room and in the CID office is a valuable information resource.
9. The chronic offender parolee information sheets that are forwarded via the Department's Intranet to police personnel are a valuable information resource.
10. Crime mapping the parolees' residents is a valuable information resource.
11. Since Project Parolee, estimate how many chronic offenders parolees do you believe you are reasonably familiar with?
| 3A | 0.75 |
| :-- | --: |
| 3.4 | 1.07 |
1. The parolee chronic offender resource book made available in the patrol briefing room and in the CID office is a valuable information resource.
2. The chronic offender parolee information sheets that are forwarded via the Department's Intranet to police personnel are a valuable information resource.
3. Crime mapping the parolees' residents is a valuable information resource.
4. Since Project Parolee, estimate how many chronic offenders parolees do you believe you are reasonably familiar with?
| 3.3 | 1.12 |
| :-- | :-- |
| 3A | 0.75 |
12. Before Project Parolee, estimate how many chronic offender parolees do you believe you were reasonably familiar with?
| 0.5 | 0.86 |
| :-- | :-- |
# - PRIMARY PROBLEM: Active chronic offenders exist within the community who are prone to committing a substantial number of crimes.
The Rapid City Police Department first approach to this endemic problem was to determine what is the best source for identifying chronic offenders? It was determined that Parole Services was the best source since it is their mission to provide supervision of convicted criminals. A chronic offender is one, by definition, who has a criminal lifestyle and has a history of committing crime. They are repeat offenders. As such, naturally chronic offenders, for the most part, become part of the Parole Services function at some point in their life.
The decision to make contact with Parole Services as an information source was very helpful to becoming aware of potentially active chronic offenders in Rapid City. In fact, prior to the project, there was not common knowledge by the Police Department about how many parolees lived in our community; especially those deemed as high-risk chronic offender parolees. A survey sampled thirty officers 30 over three patrol shifts revealed officers estimated they knew on the average 0.5 chronic offenders BEFORE Project Parolee.
The Rapid City Police Department recognizes that Parole Services alone is not a dependable source to help identify the total population of chronic offenders in Rapid City. The Police Department considered other alternatives, which will hopefully be pursued, to better identify the entire population of active chronic offenders. One of those alternatives is to work with Court Services juvenile aftercare program to develop a similar partnership in sharing information about serious juvenile offenders and work with them in making proactive contacts. However, the Police Department does have a Gang Task Force that has in place a means to monitor and make proactive contacts with gang members.
Rapid City is a regional center for commerce and tourism. As such, the Black Hills and city attracts literally thousands of people to our community on any single day. Certainly a percentage of these people visiting the area are active chronic offenders. In addition, the region deals with the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally each year, which brings in approximately 225,000 motorcyclists. Literally hundreds of the motorcyclist belong to outlaw motorcycle gangs and can be easily classified as chronic offenders. The police department has another long established multi-agency strategy for identifying serious chronic offenders during this major event. Regardless of the various alternative responses available to know who consist of the chronic offender population within the city, many of those identities will likely go unknown to the police.
Project Parolee was found to be a broad strategic response that was both practical and efficient to estimate an important subgroup of potentially active chronic offenders in Rapid City.
# SUB PROBLEM: What can be done to respond effectively to the primary problem to facilitate identifying, monitoring, and making proactive police contacts with chronic offenders in order to prevent, reduce, or solve crimes?
The response to the chronic offender sub problem was a multifaceted approach with favorable and measurable impact.
The prime means used to effectively identify, monitor and make proactive contacts with chronic offenders to prevent and reduce crime was through building a partnership with Parole Services. As a result, it was found that there are over 225 parolees in Rapid City, but more importantly, approximately 30 chronic offender parolees classified to be at high-risk by Parole Services and were identified by their name, location, past crimes, and risk behaviors. It was determined that those parolees classified as being high-risk parolees were the type of chronic offender subjects that should be included in the Project Parolee caseload.
## Method for Parolee Classification
The method used to classify chronic offenders is the Parole Services standard RISKSCREENING INSTRUMENT. Numerical ratings are provided by Parole Services agents for a number of criteria such as: 1 Number of felony convictions (or juvenile adjudications as a delinquent for a felony; 2 Crime of violence felony conviction; 3 Arrested within five years prior to arrest for current offense (excludes traffic); 4 Age at arrest leading to first felony conviction (or juvenile adjudications as a delinquent for a felony); 5 Amount of time employed in the last 12 months (prior to incarceration for parolees); 6 Alcohol and/or drug usage problems (prior to incarceration); 7 Gambling problems (prior to incarceration); 8 Number of prior adult incarcerations in State or Federal institution; 9 Age at offense leading to current incarceration; 10 Number of prior adult probation/parole supervisions; and 11 Number of prior probation/parole revocations resulting in imprisonment (adult or juvenile). A RiskScreening Instrument ratingof33 classifies the parolee as high-risk and eligible for being included as a case in Project Parolee. There were approximately 30 parolees classified high-risk at the beginning of the project in December 2000 with other cases added.
# Early Assessment Findings from Police-Parole Team Proactive Contacts
A partnership was formed via the Project Parolee strategy with Parole Services and the Police Department. As part of the partnership, it was agreed that police officers and parole agents would make planned proactive contacts together as a team. The parole agents would develop a list of chronic offender parolees to be checked by the team. Through the Parole Services authority to make parole checks, it was extremely facilitative to achieve the Police Department's Project Parolee objective to monitor parolees to prevent, reduce and solve crime. Police officers, on their own, do not make parole checks. Second, parole agents, by themselves, do not have the authority to check the identification, and make record checks, for those persons found associating parolees. Making parole checks together, parole agents and police officers can have more impact than acting independently. Table H Proactive Chronic Offender Parolee Contacts demonstrates some preliminary findings of actual police-parole team outcomes.
Table II
Proactive Contacts of Chronic Offender Parolees
| Date of Check | Number of Parolees Targeted | \% Actual Contacts | Parole Violations | Arrest for Crime | Associate F1 --- | Arrests |
| :--: | :--: | :--: | :--: | :--: | :--: | :--: |
| 12/17/00 | 8 | 6 (75\%) | 1 (16.7\%) | 0 | 2 | 0 |
| 01/03/01 | 7 | 7 (100\%) | 1 (14.3\%) | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| 02/03/01 | 37 | 30 (81\%) | 7 (23.3\%) | 0 | 3 | 0 |
| 03/24/01 | 14 | 14 (100\%) | 2 (14.3\%) | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 03/15/01 | 1 | 1 (100\%) | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 |
| 03/27/01 | 1 | 1 (100\%) | 1 (100\%) | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 03/30/01 | 24 | 18 (75\%) | 5 (27.8\%) | 1 (5.5\%) | 3 | 0 |
| Totals $=$ | 92 | 77 (83.7\%) | 17 (22.1\%) | 1 (1.3\%) | 11 | 2 (18.2\%) |
The resources applied to making the proactive parolees contacts simply required forming team of two, one police and one parole agent. In some instances, more than one team can be sent out at a time to make the parole checks. As a form of directed patrol, the police officer and parole agent team made the proactive contacts. The contacts made by the team had a measurable impact and appears to be a resourceful way for police to make effective contacts with high-risk chronic offender parolees. Most of these proactive contacts were generated under the Project Parolee effort and would not have otherwise occurred by parole agents when they did.
As noted in Table II, here is a brief summary of the findings:
- $83.7 \%$ of the attempts the team was successful in making a proactive contact with the parolee. The contact was usually at the parolee's residence.
- $22.1 \%$ of those parolees contacted were found to be in violation of a parole rule and therefore were apprehended.
- $1.3 \%$ of those parolees contacted were discovered to have committed a new crime and subsequently were arrested.
- $18.2 \%$ of those people associating with the parolee who were checked by the police were arrested.
- $12 \%$ of the time when the team made contact with the parolee, it was determined to be in the interest of the police to check the identification of the parolee's associate's and check if there are any outstanding warrants, etc.
For the basic measurable results obtained from the Project Parolee teams proactive contacts, the Police Department's and Parole Services administration believe the impact is a very reasonable return for the committed resources. Hopefully this proactive contact impact can be further optimized as our partnership benefits from more experience and program evaluation.
# Assessment of Parole Services increased use by police officers
One of the side-benefits of initiating Project Parolee is that there has been an increased request by Parole Services to use of police officers to locate and apprehend chronic offender parolees who are known to be in violation of parole rules. Noticeably, after the implementation of Project Parolee, parole agents felt more comfortable about making increasing requests for police assistance. As a result, police officers overall were very responsive by giving directed patrol attention to assist Parole Services to make apprehensions of known parole violators. The sharing of parole violation information did significantly support the police objective to monitor and arrest chronic offenders for crime prevention purposes. The basic premise is that the fewer days a chronic offender spends in the community, especially one who is violating parole rules, the less vulnerable the community is to becoming a repeat victim of crimes. Violating parole rules like drinking alcohol, drug use, gambling, associating with the restricted persons (such as gang members, or previous victim), pawning, curfew, not reporting to work, possession of a weapon, etc., are behavioral indicators that the chronic offender parolee is an unacceptable behavior and criminal risk to the community.
Parole Services making special requests for police assistance to arrest parole violators has resulted in 21arrests (Between mid-December to April 24, 2001). These are arrests beyond the police-parole team checks. Since beginning of Project Parolee, the use of police to make such arrests has increased.
Early assessment of the fingerprints of all high-risk offenders are entered and classified for matching against fingerprints obtained from unsolved crimes.
The AFIS technology method was suggested to be applied to better monitor and detect when a chronic offender parolee has committed a crime. This specific monitoring response has so far had an undetermined impact. As brought out before, when checking to make certain all chronic parole offender prints were entered into the local AFLX System, the check revealed that a substantial number of past offender prints were not (20, 66\%) in the active database within automated fingerprint indexing fingerprint system. Although the fingerprint database was updated to include all Project Parolee subjects, for the past three months there have not been any fingerprint identification matches (hits). However, Project Parolee has had a secondary impact by creating a name checklist procedure to make certain all serious parolees active in our community are verified to be in the automated fingerprint indexing system. In the matter of time this incredible suspect-generating tool should prove to be valuable.
# Early assessment of mapping methods and techniques for monitoring chronic offender parolees.
1 Chronic offender parolee location maps. Information sheets were created for police officers, investigators and parole agents that included a mapped location of chronic offender parolees. The purpose of mapping the parolees was to assist officers, investigators and parole agents to more easily locate where the subjects live and worked to facilitate monitoring and crime analysis. A program evaluation survey of thirty patrol officers indicated a consensus of agreement (Table I, Question 10) about the positive value of mapping and accompanying information sheets. However, after the Department is currently working toward information sheets and maps on existing patrol car computers. It is believed officers will refer to the mapping information more than they do now if the information was installed on the computer.
2 Crime Analysis. By early February 2001 all chronic offender parolee residences were mapped on a City street template using Arc View. Some of the delay for the input had to do with installation of crime map software and our detective, who is assigned to Project Parolee, office being moved to a shopping mall police substation.
The impact of crime analysis to generate suspects in relation to parolee locations and unsolved crimes is still undetermined at this early stage in the project. However, the Department now has the ability to analyze unsolved crimes in a spatial relationship with parolee residences. Eventually through crime analysis the Department is certain this method of monitoring parolees will produce valid suspects for unsolved crimes. This method of monitoring parolees is in its infancy and will be both developed and assessed in the coming months.
Early Assessment of checking pawnshop records each week against the Master Name List of chronic offenderparolees to monitor possible criminal activity, or other possible parole violations.
Checking pawnshop records each week against the Master Name List began the last week in April. Thirty high-risk parolees were checked against the police pawn record program that resulted in six ( $\mathbf{2 0 \%}$ ) name matches. These six parolees have violated a serious parole rule.
As noted previously, a few parole agents have used pawnshop record checks of parolee names successfully. However, it was found that in the past the pawnshop program was not used systematically to monitor on high-risk parolees. Project Parolee will make certain the pawnshop program monitoring method is used weekly for all high-risk parolees. Further assessment of the method should be interesting.
- Early Assessment of Developing a high operational awareness among police officers and investigators about who are the high-risk chronic offenders, where they reside and hang out, and the risk they pose.
The findings are mixed regarding developing a high operational awareness among police officers and investigators about who are high-risk offenders. A survey administered in April (Table I) revealed that some officers reported knowing 10 chronic parolees since implementing Project Parolee, whereas before they only knew I. However, on the average, officers reported they knew 0.5 chronic (total 14130) parolees and since Project Parolee they know 1.9 parolees (total
58130). Although it could be claimed that this was nearly a $300 \%$ estimated increase when compared to before Project Parolee, surprisingly there were still 11 officers ( $36.6 \%$ ) who reported that they did not know even one chronic parolee since the initiation of the project. As such, the findings were mixed regarding operational awareness among officers. Some officers have greatly benefited developing an operational knowledge about high-risk paroles from the strategy, whereas several officers have unfortunately made no meaningful progress.
Since the survey, the new objective of Project Parolee is for every officer to be operationally aware of at least those high-risk paroles in their respective patrol reporting area. As such, it is estimated that officers should be very familiar with five to ten parolees for the strategy to have its ideal impact. There will be an effort to assign more officers with parole agents to do parole checks since this seems to be an excellent way for officers to better remember high-risk parolees.
- Assessing any change in the lack of sharing of vital information and resources among the police and parole about high-risk chronic offender parolees that is necessary for increasing their respective effectiveness to prevent, control and solve crime.
The value of Parole Services sharing information is believed to have had an impact to preventing, controlling and solving crime. As mentioned earlier, Parole Services now systematically shares vital information about parole violators more with the police than in the past. The result is that over the last four months the police have arrested 21 parolees by parole agents requesting officers to help arrest parole violators. In addition, the police-parole checks resulted in another 17 arrests. Less chronic offenders on the street, especially when they are known to be violating parole rules, to some meaningful extent is a crime prevention and reduction measure.
The patrol officer survey revealed mixed findings about the sharing of information, but mostly positive. Seven-teen ( $17,56.6 \%$ ) officers rated that they either agreed, or strongly agreed, that the method sharing information by parole services has been valuable. However, several officers indicated from their viewpoint there was no noticeable difference.
# Closing Considerations
The chronic offender problem is being impacted by problem oriented policing as demonstrated through the SARA Model. The Rapid City Police Department and Parole Services developed an effective non-traditional partnership to work closely together to share information in new ways about chronic offender parolees, and as a team, make proactive contacts, and when necessary, arrests. For the first time, several methods of monitoring chronic offenders were systematically applied, assessed and improved. The Police Department, after going through the scanning, analysis and response phases, has developed a broad based systematic multifaceted strategy to identify, monitor and proactively contact high-risk parolees for the purpose of preventing, reducing and solving crime.
Developing a system for applying methods for monitoring chronic offenders is challenging. Having Parole Services develop useful information sheets and take digital pictures, to add as an attachment, required some commitment and coordinating. In the future, there will be other items to include on the information sheet such as vehicle owned, or regularly, operated by the parolee.
Parole Services, too, has made it a new priority to keep the police department up-to-date about new high-risk parolees. Developing specialized lists of chronic offenders to be contacted by the police-parole team required new considerations such as geography, type of offender, etc.
Change is always a challenge; however, change is how one learns by seeing things anew. For example, Project Parolee through the SARA model caused the Department to more closely analyze if the chronic offender fingerprints assumed to be in the AFIS database for comparison were actually there. Surprisingly, it was discovered that a substantial number of fingerprints expected to be in the AFIS database were absent. Another important change was Parole Services providing an updated master name list of high-risk parolees. This allowed the Department to begin doing other monitoring systematically, such as weekly checking pawnshop records. Other promising methods for monitoring parolees will be checking the master name list with jail visitations and traffic citations records systems. Recently, the Police Department has met with our Records Management System vendor to discuss how some of these master name list checks can be automated. Project Parolee systematic monitoring of parolees will provide new opportunities to keep these high-risk parolees on the police radar screen so officers can respond accordingly.
Interestingly, the assumption that officers actually do not know many chronic offender parolees turned out to be more of a profound problem than the Department imagined. The SARA model, especially the analysis and assessment phases, provided a more accurate view of the problem with officers' lack of knowledge about vital chronic offender information. The assessment also suggested that the designed responses to better educate officers about chronic parolees need to be either adjusted and/or intensified since many officers still lack a sufficient knowledge of a substantial number of high-risk parolees, even after all the efforts of Project Parolee. The Police Department and officers have never been accustomed to having so much information about chronic offenders provided to them. The expectations are not clear about how much chronic offender information can officers absorb and should be responsible to learn. Conveying vital high-risk parolee information effectively to officers will remain challenge.
Another added value of Project Parolee is that officers are coming into contact of those people who associate with high-risk parolees. Considering Sutherland's Theory of Differential Association, we have found validity that people of poor character and habits tend to pack together. The police-parole team proactive parole checks give police officers the opportunity to proactively contact and become acquainted with other potential chronic offenders.
There is a realization by both Parole Services and the police that there may be some displacement of the high-risk parolee problem to other communities. Parolees, to some degree, have a choice where they do their parole time. If word ever got out that doing parole time in Rapid City and Pennington County was tough, in fact, too tough, parolees may seek other places to reside. From a practical standpoint, the less high-risk crime prone parolees in our community, the less exposure our residents have to becoming a crime victim. Right now Project Parolee has been operating for only about four months, so it is uncertain if the scenario of parolees avoiding Rapid City to do their parole time will become a reality or not.
Since the implementation of Project Parolee, and its successes so far, the Pennington County Sheriff's Department has joined our partnership. Project Parolee will now be expanded throughout Pennington County. The future of Project Parolee remains very promising.
# References
J. Baldwin and A.E. Bottoms, The urban criminal: A study in Sheffield, (London: Tavistock Publications, 1976)
D. Canter., Criminal Shadows, (London: HarperCollins, 1994)
Ronald P. Fitzgerald, et al, " "Boston's Operation Night Light: An Emerging Model for Police-Probation Partnerships," in Community Corrections: Probation, Parole, and Intermediate Sanctions, ed. Joan Petersilia, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998)
T. Gabor and E. Gottheil, Offender characteristics and spatial mobility: An empirical study and some policing implications, (Canadian Journal of Criminology, 26, 1984)
Jack Maple, Crime Fighter: Putting the Bad Guys out of Business, (Doubleday \& Company, Inc., 1999)
J.P. McIver, "Criminal mobility: A review of empirical Studies," In S. Hakim \& G.F. Rengert (Eds.), Crime spillover, (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1981)
Dale Parent and Brad Snyder, Police-Correction Partnerships (National Institute of Justice Issues and Practices March 1999)
E. Rebscher and F. Rohrer, "Police information retrieval systems and the role of electronic data processing," In E. Kube \& H.U. Storzer (Eds), Police research in the Federal Republic of Germany: I Syears research within the "Bundesliriminalamt, " (Berlin: Springer-Velag, 1991)
Lawrence W. Sherman, et al, "Policing For Crime Prevention," Preventing Crime: What Works, What Doesn \% What's Promising, A REPORT TO THE UNITED STATES CONGRESS, (National Institute of Justice, 1996)
Marvin Wolfgang, Robert Figlia, and Thorsen Sellin, Delinquency In a Birth Cohort, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1972)
# Appendix A
## Parolee Risk-Screening Instrument
# RUSK-SCREENING INSTRUMENT
Number of felony convictions (or juvenile adjudications as a delinquent for a felony)
Crime of violence felony conviction w/ offense occurring:
Arrested within five 5 years prior to arrest for current offense (excludes traffic)
Age at arrest leading to first felony conviction (or juvenile adjudications as a delinquent for a felony)
Amount of time employed in last 12
Months (prior to incarceration for parolees)
Alcohol and/or drug usage problems (prior to incarceration for parolees)
Gambling problems (prior to incarceration for parolees)
Number of prior adult incarcerations in State or Federal institution
Age at offense leading to current incarceration
Number of prior adult probation/ parole supervisions
Number of prior probation/parole revocations resulting in imprisonment (adult or juvenile)
2 One
4 Two or more
010 yrs prior to current
25 yrs prior to current
4 current conviction
0 No
4 Yes
024 and over
2 20-23
419 and under
0 More than 7 months
1 5to7months
2 Less than 5 months
0 Not applicable
0 No interference with functioning
2 Occasional abuse; some disruption of functioning
4 Frequent abuse; serious disruption; needs treatment
0 No interference with functioning
2 Occasional abuse; some disruption of functioning
4 Frequent abuse; serious disruption; needs treatment
$31-2$
63 and above
030 and over
3 18-29
617 and under
0 None
4 One or more
0 None
4 One or more
# Appendix E
Project Parolee Program Evaluation Survey
# Project Parolee Program Evaluation Survey
As a police professional, you are aware that a small percentage of offenders account for a substantial amount of crime. Those repeat offenders are often categorized as being chronic offenders. One problem faced by police officers and investigators is simply being aware of and staying up-to-date, about whom the chronic offenders are in the community. Project Parolee is intended to be a partial answer to the challenging problem faced by police officers and investigators staying aware of and up-to-date with chronic offenders. Project Parolee, as a strategy, is also designed to focus on making proactive contacts and arrests of chronic offenders for the purposes of crime prevention and reduction, as well as enhancing officer safety.
Project Parolee was initiated in mid December as a proactive monitoring and arrest solution to the problem of chronic offenders existing in the Rapid City community. The following evaluation survey request that you rate the impact of the new strategy to enable police officers to know who chronic offenders are and allow the Department to proactively monitor these high-risk parolees. Please respond to each statement using the rating scale. Thank you for you help.
| | Rating Scale | | | |
| :--: | :--: | :--: | :--: | :--: |
| I | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| Strongly | Disagree | Neutral | Agree | Strongly |
| Disagree | | | | Agree |
1.ProjectParolee has made me more aware about who the chronic offender parolees are in our community.
2. The sharing of information by Parole Services at our patrol briefings has been valuable to officers.
3. Periodically assigning police officers and investigators to work with a parole agent, as a team, to make parole checks of chronic offenders is a worthwhile use of resources.
4. If asked, you would want to serve on the police-parole team to make parole checks.
5. Since Project Parolee, officers are more familiar about where chronic offender parolees live within the community and their patrol area.
6. Since Project Parolee, the working relationship among Parole Services and the Police Department has been more effective.
7. Since Project Parolee, I am more aware about who the parole agents are within Rapid City.
8. The parolee chronic offender resource book made available in the patrol briefing room and in the CID office is a valuable information resource.
9. The chronic offender parolee information sheets that are forwarded via the Department's Intranet to police personnel are a valuable information resource.
10. Crime mapping of parolees residences is a valuable information resource.
Please answer the following questions:
11. Since Project Parolee, estimate how many chronic offender parolees do you believe you are reasonably familiar with?
12. Before Project Parolee, estimate how many chronic offenders parolees do you believe you were reasonably familiar with?
13. What do you believe are the strengths of the Project Parolee strategy?
14. How might we improve Project Parolee to be more beneficial to police officers and investigators?
15. Please make any other helpful comments about Project Parolee.
# Thank you for your help !