On May 6 and 7, the Crime and Justice (CJI) shared their expertise at the Association of Paroling Authorities International (APAI) 2024 Annual Training Conference in Bellevue, Washington.

Collaboration in Nevada’s Adult Justice System through JRI

The first presentation by Deputy Director Valerie Meade and Manager Abby Strait, titled “Strengthening Cross-Agency Collaboration; Nevada’s Adult Justice System Agencies Unite to Implement Change,” provided audience members with an overview of how Nevada’s justice agencies came together to tackle system challenges and overcome barriers to success while implementing new policies through their Justice Reinvestment Initiative legislation. The presentation featured testimonials from key players within state’s adult justice system including the Chair of the Nevada Board of Parole Commissioners and staff from the Nevada Department of Corrections, who discussed how this collaboration impacted their agency, the people they serve, and the state’s justice system.

Presentation Highlights

Participants in Nevada’s cross agency collaboration discussed how helpful it has been to build relationships and improve processes across the state’s justice system agencies. This effort has allowed agencies to identify where and how to work together and celebrate successes, as well as to identify potential barriers or issues early, and collaborate on problem solving. When giving advice to other states that might want to improve collaboration, one participant noted it’s important to embrace a problem solving mindset, saying: “when one of your collaborative partners calls and asks for information or assistance…give it to them as if they were calling from your own agency.”

Montana’s Pardon and Parole Decision-Making Tool

The second presentation by Senior Policy Specialist Caitlin Flood and Senior Data and Policy Specialist Maja Vlajnic, titled “Assessing the Reliability and Impact of Montana Board of Pardons and Parole’s Decision-Making Tool,” explored the Montana Board of Pardons and Parole’s (BOPP’s) effort to assess their parole release guidelines tool and overall decision-making process by reviewing whether release scores align with supervision outcomes.

CJI is currently conducting an assessment to better understand whether Montana’s parole release guidelines’ scoring accurately aligns with resulting parole outcomes and other trends impacting BOPP processes and practices. The goal of this effort is to help Montana’s BOPP strengthen supervision outcomes and share data and research questions with other paroling agencies that might be interested in conducting a similar evaluation.

Learn More