WHEREAS, Probation is an alternative to incarceration and California probation’s mission is to deliver a seamless approach to providing effective supervision and rehabilitation services to justice-involved individuals; and

WHEREAS, Probation professionals play a unique and essential role in our justice system and our communities and are focused on helping justice-involved individuals transition out of the system permanently through transformative and evidence-based rehabilitation. Probation officers are trained experts prepared to manage trauma and other needs of system-involved individuals and safely connect them to the supports they need; and

WHEREAS, Probation connects service and need to enhance community safety and the restoration of justice-involved individuals. Probation departments are a connector in the justice system: interlacing and maximizing the resources available within the courts, local governments, law enforcement, social services, behavioral health, schools, crime survivor organizations, nonprofit organizations, and the community to reduce recidivism by carefully balancing direct human services and research-based deterrents and interventions; and

WHEREAS, Probation departments in California are focused on supporting and advocating for policies that will further the focus to help justice-involved individuals transition back to our communities safely and apply an equity lens to ensure these policies will effectively address the diverse needs of those probation departments serve; and

WHEREAS, Probation’s efforts to balance the need for accountability with the need for rehabilitative treatment and services provides justice-involved individuals the supports and opportunities needed to move onto a healthier and safer life pathway; and

WHEREAS, By delivering sustainable community safety, probation departments have a profound impact on the safety and the health of our communities by working to reduce recidivism through evidence-based programming and supervision. Probation’s success ensures that our state’s communities are a safer environment for all Californians to live and prosper; now, therefore, be it