Rural Jail Reentry by Kyle C. Ward

Author:Kyle C. Ward [Ward, Kyle C.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Criminology
ISBN: 9781315469836
Google: KcWEDgAAQBAJ
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2017-03-27T00:00:00+00:00

Procedures

This study contains three samples that, when combined, aimed to identify rural-specific problems faced by returning offenders. The first sample involved the administration of an online survey to all 65 county-level probation/parole departments and their officers within the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The survey was constructed using Qualtrics, an online survey tool, and sent to all of the chief probation officers in Pennsylvania. The chiefs were asked to disseminate the survey to all available parole/probation officers. The director of the CCAPPOAP provided the list of chief probation officers as well as an e-mail endorsing the project. All survey data were completely anonymous. As the county-level parole/probation chief disseminated an anonymous survey link, there is no way to identify the respondents of the survey.

The online survey began with an informed consent page. The consent page outlined the parameters of the study and assured that no risk beyond minimal harm was involved. At the bottom of the first page, a box was made available indicating that the respondent had read the informed consent and wished to participate in the study. Respondents were required to agree to participate in order to take the survey. The survey took each participant an estimated 10–20 minutes to complete. The survey remained open from July 10 until October 15, 2014.

The distribution of the survey occurred through six contacts. The first e-mail contact occurred in July of 2014. In the initial e-mail sent to the chief probation/parole officers, a request was made by the executive director of CCAPPOAP to forward the survey to all of the officers under their direct supervision. The executive director of CCAPPOAP sent a recruitment e-mail encouraging officers to take part in the study.

An additional five contacts occurred in the following three months. The second contact was made the following week by the researcher and consisted of a reminder e-mail about the nature of the study sent to the chief parole/probation officers at each site asking them to forward the e-mail to all of their officers. Shortly after the online distribution, the researcher began receiving e-mails from chief probation/parole officers reporting that officers were unable to access the survey website with the link provided. Through troubleshooting, it was determined that some agency computer networks restricted access to outside websites. Because of these technical difficulties involved with the online distribution of the surveys, an invitation to receive hard copies of the survey was extended (the third contact) to each probation and parole department at the end of the first month of data collection. The researcher then e-mailed all chief probation/parole officers. As a result of the follow-up e-mail, three departments requested hard copies of the survey, and a total of 121 surveys were mailed. Of the 121 hard copies mailed, 61 were returned.

The fourth contact occurred in late August and consisted of a personalized e-mail addressed to each probation/parole chief. In late September, physical postcards (the fifth contact) were sent to the chief of each probation/parole office via postal mail. Postcards contained the same text as the reminder e-mail.

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