E: Community Supervision

2: Community supervision officers can play a role in keeping parolees and probationers in treatment.

Without positive and negative reinforcements, incentives to adhere to treatment, and other mechanisms to encourage continued program participation, treatment attrition rates will be high. For example, in studies of compliance with preventive tuberculosis (TB) therapy regimens among individuals released from jail in San Francisco, only three percent of participants attended a public health clinic within one month of re-entry. [1]   A similar program in Seattle found that only 30 percent of releasees completed the full course of preventive TB treatment. [2]   In contrast, an outreach program for TB patients being released from New York City's Rikers Island showed a dramatic increase in participation in community-based treatment-from 20 percent to 92 percent-when small incentives were used to get the releasees to attend appointments. [3]   Accordingly, probation and parole officers can play a key role in ensuring that people stay in treatment by tailoring and enforcing individuals' conditions of release around this goal. One study has already demonstrated that community supervision can play a key role in keeping people in treatment for those critical first 90 days. [4]  

  1. Jacqueline Peterson Tulsky, Mary Castle Whiite, Carol Dawson, Thomas M. Hoynes, Joe Goldenson, and Gisela Schecter, "Screening for Tuberculosis in Jails and Clinic Follow-Up After Release," American Journal of Public Health 88 (1998-02-01), 223-226 .

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  2. No citation found for FN_directly-observed-isoniazid-preventive-therapy-for-released-jail-inmates! .

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  3. No citation found for FN_tuberculosis-in-new-york-city-turning-the-tide! .

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  4. No citation found for FN_adult-correctional-treatment! .

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