Probation and parole officers have a new best friend.  "Tools of the Trade: A Guide to Incorporating Science into Practice," a manual for community corrections staff, was published in 2004 to help probation and parole officers tweak some of their traditional supervision methods to be more in line with research-based practices. 

Faye Taxman, a professor in Virginia Commonwealth University's L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs, served as the manual's primary author and worked with researchers from the University of Maryland and the University of Massachusetts, Lowell to create the 100-page publication.

Recently, The Corrections Connection Network News talked with Taxman about the new manual and the issues is covers.  She also discussed other research projects she is currently involved with.

Q: What is your background?

Taxman: I was a criminal justice/ political science major in undergraduate school.   I got my doctorate from Rutgers University, Newark's School of Criminal Justice and, since then, I have been an active researcher who has been mostly interested in trying to look at how you bring about organizational change and improving the outcomes of offenders based on more systems issues versus issues related to just trying to figure out how best to work with the offender populations.

I was at the University of Maryland for a long period of time and now I am with Virginia Commonwealth University.  I am involved in a number of research projects that focus on learning more about organizations.

Right now I am the principal investigator of a research center that is funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the CJ-DATS (Criminal Justice - Drug Abuse Treatment Studies) [Coordinating Center].  As part of that, we are doing a national survey to really learn more about the structure of services within corrections settings.  A lot of times, people think that corrections does certain things when, in fact, that is not necessarily how they are structured.

It is my main research project.

We are working collaboratively with NIDA on studies to advance our knowledge about different aspects of service delivery for offenders. (See www.cjdats.org).  Essentially under CJ-DATS, the purpose of that is to really help us improve our knowledge about different aspects of the correctional system and how they implement different changes. 

I am the study director for a national survey that involves all state corrections agencies and then a stratified sample of counties and cities in the U.S. so that we can learn about services at the state level and then also [at] the local [level].

Q: What is the goal of the CJ-DATS research project?

Taxman: My ultimate goal is to look at some of the issues that affect the ability to implement offender programs, look at it more from an organizational perspective and then think about different interventions you could [make to] enhance how the organization functions.  It's more about this concept of innovation management - how do you bring about innovations and sustain them in organizations?  A lot of this work is done in business, but it is not necessary done in public interest agencies.

Q: Can you discuss the recent guide that was released?

Taxman: My interest has been in the notion that if you look at the history of corrections, essentially, what happens is that you have a lot of ideas that come into play and then organizations have a difficult time implementing them.  Part of what we did was, basically, begin a research collaborative with the Maryland Division of Parole and Probation and we started testing out some new ideas and testing out different ways of implementing these concepts and practices. We had this research collaborative that has been going on since 1995 with this department and we have been working with key players in the department - [from] the director down to line staff - and looking at how to put in place the best way to do correctional business - evidence-based practices - things that work, things that will bring about changes.  In this partnership, we learned a lot about the ability of the staff to use available information and understand some of these concepts.  We realized that there was nothing really available in the field that was written really for the people who are working in the system.  A lot of stuff is a written for academic journals [and] not everyone has access [to them] or time to read [them].  There's a [need] to translate the information in academic journals into something that corrections departments could use to help their staff understand the concepts and put [them] into practice.  That is what we did.

Q: What issues does the guide cover? 

Taxman: It really covers issues related to why is risk screening and assessment important, why is assessing criminogenic needs [important], how do you take those needs and think about a case plan [and] a supervision plan, what would the agency need to do to support those efforts, how do you communicate and talk to offenders - things of that nature.  The manual basically goes through and kind-of presents the current state of knowledge on all these different topics and tries to define the topics and give people examples and [help them] think about what they can do to put [different practices] in place in their organization.

Q: What are some of the accomplishments in your career that you are most proud of?

Taxman: My greatest accomplishment, I think, has been getting my doctorate - getting the academic position to put me in a place in which I could basically work on a variety of projects. 

Another big accomplishment is developing this research collaboration with the Maryland Division of Parole and Probation because I have learned so much.  It has really helped me understand organizational dynamics.  It has also added to my research.  Instead of focusing on the offenders and how people don't change you begin to think about how organizations and structure are enhancing people's [ability to] change [and] what are the things you have to put in place to facilitate that.

Q: How are organizational dynamics unique in corrections?

Taxman: One of the big issues is that corrections is not an industry in which we focus on leadership development skills among staff.  Very few state and local corrections agencies have put in place a system in which they can help develop true leaders within organizations.  People who are transformational leaders that can work with their staff at various levels.  Most of that is done with on-the-job training.  In law enforcement, for example, there are a lot more scenarios in which they have good leadership development mechanisms.  If you look in businesses, they have a lot more in terms of leadership development and strategic development and that is something that is not available to the corrections field.  That leads to some constraints within organizations.

Another [thing] that business has done that is much more difficult in the public sector, but is not impossible, is to really focus in on issues related to goal attainment.  If our goal is to reduce recidivism, how would an organization really go about doing that?  The corrections system could think through some more strategic [ways to do that].

Q: What are some things on the horizon for you?

Taxman: The CJ-DATS project is a five-year project.  We are hoping that we can get some results out actually beginning this summer.  We are doing a multi-level survey.  Part of that survey will be to really look at how we can put in place these evidence-based practices and what some of the barriers [to doing so are] and some [of the] interventions?

[And] under CJ-DATS, there are a number of studies that are going to be fielded.  One is called Stepping Out.  I have been working collaboratively with a team from Brown University to put in place a protocol within probation and parole agencies [for] motivation enhancement and incentive processes for offenders.  If we focus more on the small gains people make doing things right, we can help offenders overcome the challenges they face.  That study is on the horizon [and] I am excited about [it].

I am also working with NIC on an institutional culture initiative and working on [some] manuals.  I am doing that collaboratively with a couple of other people, including Jim Byrne from the University of Massachusetts, Lowell and the Criminal Justice Institute, headed by George Camp.  We are also working with a consultant Carol Flaherty-Zonis.  That should be interesting.