HB2707 - 551R

Be it enacted by the Legislature of the State of Arizona:

Section 1. Title 12, chapter 2, article 7, Arizona Revised Statutes, is amended by adding section 12-700, to read:

START_STATUTE12-700. Probation failure reduction incentive payments; baseline calculations; annual reports; definitions

A. The administrative office of the courts, in consultation with each county's adult probation department, shall calculate a probation failure reduction incentive payment for each county for the most recently completed calendar year. For each county, the county's probation failure reduction incentive payment equals the estimated number of probationers successfully prevented from returning to prison, compared to the county-specific historical baselines calculated in subsection G, paragraph 1 of this section multiplied by forty-five percent of the marginal cost of incarceration as required by subsection F of this section. The administrative office of the courts shall proportionately allocate the incentive payments to each county based on the specific calculations made pursuant to subsection G of this section.

B. Each county shall use its probation failure reduction incentive payments to improve supervision and rehabilitative services for probationers, including any of the following:

1. Implementing and expanding evidence-based practices for risk and needs assessments for individualized programming.

2. Implementing and expanding intermediate sanctions including mandatory community restitution, home detention, day reporting, restorative justice programs and work furlough programs.

3. Expanding the availability of evidence-based practices for rehabilitation programs, including drug and alcohol treatment, mental health treatment, anger management, cognitive behavior programs and job training and employment services.

4. Hiring additional probation officers, associates or other personnel to supervise and help oversee and implement evidence-based practices for rehabilitative programming.

5. Giving financial bonuses to probation officers in adult probation departments that receive incentive payments pursuant to this section.

6. Evaluating the effectiveness of rehabilitation and supervision programs and ensuring program fidelity.

C. The administrative office of the courts shall allocate probation failure reduction incentive payments to each county for distribution to the county's adult probation department to implement probation programming. The probation failure reduction incentive payments allocated pursuant to this section shall be used to supplement, not supplant, any other State or county appropriation for the adult probation department.

D. Of the probation failure reduction incentive payments allocated to a county, the county shall do all of the following:

1. Distribute sixty percent of the allocated monies to its adult probation department, which must use the monies for evidence-based practices at the discretion of the adult probation department.

2. Distribute twenty-five percent of the allocated monies to its adult probation department, which must use the monies for performance-based financial bonuses for all probation officers within the adult probation department.

3. Retain fifteen percent of the allocated monies for administrative and data collection purposes.

E. In any fiscal year in which a county receives incentive payments, the incentive payments, including any interest, shall be made available to the county's adult probation department to implement probation programming within thirty days after the deposit of those monies. The county adult probation department shall maintain a complete and accurate accounting of all monies received pursuant to this section.

F. At the end of each calendar year, the director of the state department of corrections shall calculate the marginal cost of incarceration for that calendar year and provide that information to the administrative office of the courts. The calculation shall take into consideration factors such as the average length of stay in prison for a person who enters prison from probation and variable corrections costs, including health care services, food and clothing.

G. At the end of each calendar year, the administrative office of the courts shall gather data, calculate and report the following for each calendar year:

1. The probation failure rate for each county. To make this calculation, the baseline probation failure rate equals the average number of adult probationers who returned to prison during calendar years 2008, 2015 and 2021, as a percentage of the average adult probation population during that same period. For the purposes of calculating the probation failure rate and the baseline probation failure rate, the number of adult probationers returning to prison includes probationers returning to prison after one of the following occurs:

(a) Revocation of probation.

(b) The probationer is convicted of a new offense. The probationer is convicted of a new offense and the probationer's probation term is terminated.

2. An estimate of the number of adult probationers each county successfully prevented from returning to prison. For each county, this estimate is calculated based on the reduction in the county's probation failure rate as calculated annually pursuant to the county's baseline probation failure rate calculated pursuant to paragraph 1 of this subsection. In making this estimate, the administrative office of the courts, in consultation with the adult probation department, shall adjust the calculations to account for changes in each county's adult probation caseload in the most recent completed calendar year as compared to the county's adult probation population during the years 2008, 2015 and 2021.

3. An accounting of the current total population of probationers per county for the last three years per county as of the date of the required report.

H. If data of sufficient quality and of the types required by this section are not available, the administrative office of the courts shall use the best available data to estimate probation failure reduction rates using a methodology that is as consistent with that described in this section as is reasonably possible.

I. The administrative office of the courts shall include an estimate of the total monies to be held and administered in the coming fiscal year as part of the judiciary's proposed budget.

J. The county board of supervisors shall periodically provide oversight regarding the allocation of incentive payments to the specific departments that are tasked with administering the programming to ensure that disbursed monies are appropriately used as specified in subsection B of this section.

K. Each adult probation department shall define and track specific outcome-based measures, including all of the following:

1. The percentage of probationers who are supervised in accordance with evidence-based practices.

2. The specific supervision policies, procedures, programs and practices that were eliminated.

3. The percentage of probationers who successfully complete the period of supervision.

4. Monies received by each adult probation department. Each adult probation department shall submit an annual written report to the administrative office of the courts, the board of supervisors of the county and the state Department of Corrections that accounts for incentive payments received and that evaluates the effectiveness of the program.

L. Not later than July 1, 2023 and annually thereafter, the administrative office of the courts shall submit to the Governor and the Legislature a comprehensive report on the implementation of this section. The report must include all of the following information:

1. The effectiveness of programs based on the reports of performance-based outcome measures required in subsection K of this section.

2. The percentage of adult probationers whose supervision was revoked for the year that the report is being made.

3. The percentage of probationers who were convicted of criminal offenses during the probationer's term of supervision for the year that the report is being made.

4. The impact of the incentive payments allocated pursuant to this section to enhance public safety by reducing the percentage and the number of probationers whose supervision was revoked for the year being reported on for violations or new convictions and to reduce the number of probationers who return to prison for the year that the report is being made.

5. Any recommendations regarding resource allocations or additional collaboration with other state, regional, federal or local entities for improvements to this section.

6. The number of probationers whose supervision was revoked solely for a violation of the terms of probation and the number of probationers whose supervision was revoked because of the commission of a new offense.

M. For the purposes of this section:

1. "Baseline probation failure rate" means the average of the probation failure rates for fiscal years 2008, 2015 and 2021. Each fiscal year's failure rate is the quotient of the number of persons on probation who were returned to incarceration for violating a term of probation in a given county divided by the total number of persons on probation in a given county.

2. "Evidence-based practices" means supervision policies, procedures, programs and practices demonstrated by scientific research to reduce recidivism among persons on probation.

3. "MARGINAL COST OF incarceration" MEANs THE SUM OF ALL SHORT-TERM VARIABLE COSTS ASSOCIATED WITH INCARCERATING a person IN A STATE department of corrections FACILITY and includes ONLY THOSE CORRECTIONAL COSTS THAT MARGINALLY CHANGE IN PROPORTION TO THE INMATE POPULATION OF A FACILITY.

4. "Probation programming" means all programs established pursuant to title 13, chapter 9 and consists of a system of probation supervision services dedicated to all of the following goals:

(a) Enhancing public safety through managing and reducing offender risk while under supervision and on reentry from prison into the community.

(b) Providing a range of supervision tools, sanctions and services that are applied to probationers based on a risk or needs assessment, or both, to reduce criminal conduct and promote individualized behavioral change that results in reducing recidivism and promoting successful reintegration into the community.

(d) Holding probationers accountable for successful compliance with applicable court orders and conditions of probation.

(e) Improving public safety outcomes for a person who is placed on probation after an offense, as measured by the person's successful completion of probation and commensurate reduction in the rate of probationers returning to prison as a result of a revocation or conviction of a new offense.

5. "Returning to prison" means a fourteen-day or greater period of time spent detained. If a person on probation spends less than fourteen days in detention, that person's detention does not apply to calculations prescribed by this section. END_STATUTE

Sec. 2. Effective date

This act is effective from and after December 31, 2021.