Although the First Judicial District's budget has fallen by $15 million since 2008, it has been able to avoid layoffs because of the attrition of court staffers.

But the biggest pinch of a year-and-a-half old hiring freeze is being felt with the shortage of more than 100 adult and juvenile probation officers.

In another era, Chief Probation and Parole Officer Robert J. Malvestuto said being down 57 adult probation and parole officers would have meant crisis and calamity.

But Malvestuto said that the Adult Probation and Parole Department has been able to weather the officer shortage because the office retooled its caseload in the summer of 2009. The office is now assigning probationers and parolees a level of supervision based upon their predicted risk of recidivism. The office has rolled out a "revolutionary" system of supervision that predicts recidivism risk on an actuarial model developed by University of Pennsylvania criminologists Richard A. Berk, Lawrence W. Sherman and others.

As of February, APPD was down to 268 officers, with 246 involved in directly supervising probationers and parolees and 22 involved in other assignments like conducting pre-sentencing investigations and staffing court programs, Malvestuto said. There are 48,000 offenders being supervised involving 62,000 cases, he said.

As of March, juvenile probation was down to around 160 officers, with some officers carrying a caseload of 44 to 50 juvenile probationers living in the community and with other officers carrying caseloads of 70 to 80 juvenile probationers living in placement facilities, said James Sharp, chief of juvenile probation.

Malvestuto, who has been the chief probation officer for a decade and counting, said he has never seen the ranks of the juvenile and adult probation officers so deeply depleted.

Philadelphia Common Pleas Judge D. Webster Keogh, administrative judge of the trial division, said that "had we not had this model ... we'd have no real answer (for the shortage of officers). We'd just have a triage."

The decision to pursue a different model of supervision of Philadelphia probationers and parolees was reached at a time when Philadelphia was facing a historic number of homicides, Malvestuto said.

With partnership from the First Judicial District, the University of Pennsylvania developed a risk-based predictive model of which offenders under APPD supervision were most likely to commit a serious offense of murder, attempted murder, aggravated assault, robbery, rape or other sex offenses within two years of the start of supervision. The court had data dating back to 1969 that the University of Pennsylvania researchers were able to use to develop an actuarial model to predict if an offender was at a high risk, moderate risk or low risk of re-offending.

Before the new supervision model was put into place for the entire department, a randomized control study was conducted to compare the recidivism rate for offenders deemed to be low risk and receiving the traditional form of supervision with the recidivism rate for offenders deemed to be low risk and receiving a much lower level of supervision.

The experimental group of low-risk offenders was scheduled for an office visit every six months and for phone contact every six months. Under the traditional model, offenders, no matter their predicted prospect of re-offending, report downtown to the APPD once a month.

After the study was completed, it was found that large caseloads did not increase the risk of arrest for low risk offenders, according to an article written by Malvestuto and two others for an American Probation and Parole Association publication.

Following the rollout of the new supervision structure last summer, officers supervising high-risk offenders are carrying a 50-person case load, Malvestuto said.

Officers supervising moderate-risk offenders are carrying a 135-person caseload, Malvestuto said. If the office were fully staffed, officers supervising moderate-risk offenders would have a 100-person case load, he said.

Officers supervising low-risk offenders are carrying caseloads of between 300 and 400 offenders, Malvestuto said.

"If we didn't think we could supervise 350 people safely (with one officer), we'd be in dire straits with 57 people short," Malvestuto said.

Sherman, of the University of Pennsylvania, said the traditional approach in probation is to give every offender the same amount of supervision.

When the APPD's entire caseload was run through the model, 60 percent of the offenders were forecast to not commit any crimes at all — but they were getting the same supervision as offenders forecast to commit new crimes, Sherman said.

"I don't know how they would have gotten by in the budget cuts without the ability to reduce supervision of low-risk people with the knowledge" there is no risk to public safety with lower supervision of this group of parolees and probationers, Sherman said.

With probationers and parolees identified as high-risk for re-offending, the key is to provide better services for people who often have been abused as children, shot at or put into other highly traumatic situations, Sherman said. Such trauma is a risk factor for committing crime or being a crime victim, Sherman said.

High-risk probationers and parolees are receiving cognitive behavioral therapy, Malvestuto and Sherman said.

"I think that is going to become a model for the nation," Sherman said.

The success of the APPD's supervision model will be tracked. Malvestuto's research staff of two is about to start gathering data for a review of the first six months of the new supervision strategy. The six-month review will be followed by a review at 12 months and 24 months, he said.

Even though the new risk-sensitive supervision method has assuaged the worst brunt of the officer shortage, the department still is feeling its strain.

Probation officers leave the employ of the city of Philadelphia for better-paying jobs with the state and federal governments, Keogh said.

"We're at the point we really can't afford to lose any more probation officers," he said.

David D. Wasson III, chief deputy court administrator, said the new supervision model is based on the APPD having roughly 310 to 320 officers and supervising about 50,000 probationers and parolees. The APPD is in compliance with the study's stipulation that high-risk offenders be supervised by officers carrying no more than a 50-person caseload, Wasson said. But due to the officer shortage, the APPD can't stay in compliance with the study's stipulation that moderate-risk offenders be supervised by officers carrying 100-person caseloads, Wasson said.

The model is "revolutionary," Wasson said, because under American Probation and Parole Association standards APPD would need 500 officers in order to keep in compliance.

Joseph A. Lanzalotti, criminal trial division deputy court administrator, said the shortage of probation officers limits the ability to develop more diversion programs because diversion programs require probation officers.

Keogh and Malvestuto said that the shortage of probation officers has left short-handed the complement of officers conducting pre-sentencing investigations, which must be prepared for judges before defendants are sentenced.

Malvestuto said he was not going to take officers away from supervising high-risk offenders to keep up better with pre-sentencing investigations.

Such investigations are not being completed in the time that judges are accustomed to, Keogh said, but that has caused "uneasiness" rather than "overwhelming alarm" in the judiciary.

The shortage of probation officers has resulted in a cap on the number of offenders who are eligible to participate in the Philadelphia Municipal Court's Driving Under the Influence Treatment Court, according to interviews.

There also is a shortage of 22 officers in the warrant officer units, which has an impact on arrests for parole and probation violations and installing electronic monitors, Malvestuto said.

Sharp, of juvenile probation, also said the shortage of juvenile probation officers forced his office to rethink its operational processes.

His department also reorganized midyear in 2009 by reassigning officers to focus on community supervision of first- or second-time offenders and seeking to become part of the "fabric of the community" by teaming up with local schools and local recreation centers, Sharp said. •