Full issue brief

At a time when states are facing historic budget deficits, state leaders can prevent a large share of the nation’s criminal activity and cut corrections costs by helping probation and parole agencies focus their efforts on higher-risk offenders, in higher-risk neighborhoods, at higher-risk times through a strategy of targeted supervision.

This 2009 brief was part of a series of primers for policy makers about the critical choices they faced in developing strategies to improve the public safety return on taxpayer dollars.