C1 Parole Respondent Discussion Guide

Core Development Work
Parole Respondent Discussion Guide
Thank you for taking time to speak with me today. During our call, I would like to learn about your
experience completing the 2014 APS. The survey has been standardized because it is a national
collection; so some of the content and terminology might not match your agency’s definitions and
practices. It is really helpful to hear how respondents interpret and apply the study definitions and
instructions to their real-life situations. That way, we can better understand the answers we receive
and identify ways to improve the survey.
There are a few specific sections of the survey that I would like to discuss with you. We can go
through the questionnaire page by page, and I’ll raise the issues that I have. Basically, I would like
you to think back to when you were answering the questions and let me know how you interpreted
the questions, any issues that came up as you tried to “fit” your data into the survey categories,
whether you were able to answer questions based on your own knowledge or if you used data from a
tracking system, etc. If you would like to talk about any issues that I don’t raise, please let me know.
The first question that I have on my list is Question 2. Should we begin with that question
or is there anything on the cover page or on the first question that you would like to talk
about?
Q2. …entered parole by –
b. Mandatory release from prison 

d. Term of supervised release from prison
 Does your agency use these terms?  How are the two groups different? 

Q3. …discharged from supervision for the following reasons –
a. Completions 
 Can you tell me what types of populations – using the labels that your agency uses – you 
included in this category? 
 Would you be able to sub‐divide the number of completions into the two categories of early 
terminations (early positive discharge) and expirations?  How would you define early 
terminations and expirations? 
o CAPSA definition of “Early terminations” or “early positive discharge”‐ A discharge prior 
to the scheduled expiration of a sentence granted in response to the satisfaction of 
conditions or earned time credits. 
o Definition of “Expirations”‐ A discharge according to the scheduled expiration of a 
sentence granted in response to the satisfaction of conditions of supervision (possibly 
with some financial conditions remaining). 

f.  Other [consider eliminating from survey] 
 What other types of discharges did you report? How did you decide whether to put them 
into: other completions, unsatisfactory, and other? 

Next, let’s look at Question 4.
Q4. On December 31st, what was your agency’s adult parole population?
 What types of populations did you include in your agency’s yearend count? 
 Did you (would you) include juveniles sentenced in an adult court? 
 When you reported the number of active and the number of inactive, how did you define 
those two groups? (Does “active” include absconders, low‐risk, those in residential 
placements that are/are not still under their jurisdiction?) Did you wonder about if, or how, 
you should report on any individuals? 
 Did you report the number that are in your custody or the number that are supervised by 
your jurisdiction?   
 Did you base your answers on information that you already had in your head or did you talk 
with others or refer to a tracking system? 
 How confident are you that your answers included everyone that they were supposed to 
include? Exclude everyone who should not be counted?  Tell me more about why you’re 
that confident. 
 What other populations are supervised by your agency?  Did you include them in any survey 
category?  Why not – what is different about them? 
 If asked, could you break‐out the yearend count by the following categories? 
o Active vs. inactive 
o Custody vs. jurisdiction 
o Felon vs. misdemeanant populations 

If you were able to provide data for the yearend count on the number of POPULATION TYPE, 
would you be able to provide the data for the rest of the survey for just these POPULATION 
TYPE probationers? 

Before we move on to the next page, are there any other issues that you would like to talk
about on Question 1 through 4?

Q5. …count of individuals or cases?
 When you answered this question on the survey, how did you define “cases”? Did you 
include instances where the person was under supervision for two or more distinct 
sentences?  Under supervision for two or more offenses as part of the same sentence?  
Something else? 
 You provide data at the case level? Can you explain why you report cases and not 
individuals? Could your agency provide data at the individual level?   
 Can you provide an estimate of the number of people with multiple cases? Can you provide 
an estimate of the average number of cases per individual? 

Unless you have comments on Questions 6 and 7, I’ll move on to Question 11.
Q11. …most serious offense –
In answering Question 11, how did you determine which offenses are more serious than others?
Can we obtain a copy of the hierarchy?
Q12. …parolees supervised by your agency had a status of –
a. Active 

c. Inactive
 How did you define an “active” parolee?  How did you define an “inactive” parolee? What 
types of parolees are included or excluded? 
 Would you be able to provide data on the number of individuals in the yearend count who 
are on “active” supervision status?  Would you be able to provide data on the number of 
individuals in the yearend count who are on “inactive” supervision status?   

b. Only financial conditions remaining
 Did these parolees get included in the yearend total? Why not? 
 Did these parolees get included in the number discharged by completion? 

d. Absconders
 Where these parolees included in the numbers reported as discharged for being an 
absconder? If not, would they still be included in the yearend population? 

g. Supervised out of jurisdiction
 What types of parolees did you include in this category? 
 Did this category include interstate compact cases that are reported in Question 6?

Next, let’s look at Question 15.
Q15. …parolees who had their location tracked through a Global Positioning System (GPS)



Tell me more about the parolees you thought about or counted for this question. 
What other types of electronic monitoring does your agency use?  Did you include any of those 
parolees in this question?  Why/Why not? 

Respondent comments: That was the last issue that I wanted to raise.
 Is there anything else that you’ve noted in the questionnaire that might affect how your 
agency would categorize or report on any population that you supervise?