Ramsey County reports lower probation-to-prison revocation rates and outlines policies to reduce disparities

Ramsey County community corrections staff told the Board of Commissioners on June 3, 2025, that the county's rate of adults exiting felony-level community supervision who are revoked to prison has declined in recent years, and they described past and planned strategies to continue that trend while addressing racial disparities.

Alex Kutz, interim deputy county manager for health and wellness, framed the discussion as part of the county's strategic priority to reduce justice-system involvement and put "well-being and community at the center of justice system transformation." He said the approach emphasizes social services and public-health interventions as the primary response and reserves incarceration for cases where diversion is not successful.

Ed Houck, research and evaluation supervisor in Community Corrections, said the county's internal measure showed that in 2024 roughly 16% of adults exiting felony-level supervision were revoked to prison. Houck described two pathways to revocation: a new criminal offense or a technical violation of supervision conditions, and he emphasized that technical violations often have underlying contributors such as poverty, mental health, substance use and housing instability.

Liz Reets, deputy director of facilities, reviewed reforms and programs the department credits with reducing revocations, including a multi-year, cross-sector "reducing revocations" initiative in partnership with the Robina Institute that engaged justice-impacted residents in co-design, and a case-planning approach launched in early 2024 that aims to train probation staff and create individualized case plans and incentives for positive behavior. Reets said the county requires case-planning training for all adult probation officers and supervised-release staff, with rollout to high- and medium-risk clients scheduled.

Staff described future and ongoing strategies: implementation planning for the Minnesota Rehabilitation and Reinvestment Act (MRRA), which creates incentives for people in state custody to participate in programming and may shorten community supervision through earned abatement; Project Bridge, which will house some long-term residents in the county correctional facility before their state placements and expand in-facility programming; and adoption of a probation response model called the Adult Intervention Module (AIM), intended to standardize sanctions and reduce individual discretion that can exacerbate disparities.

Commissioners asked data and operational questions. Commissioners sought to know whether technical violations automatically lead to revocation (staff said they do not), whether revocation data are disaggregated by race (staff confirmed higher rates for Black and Native American individuals and said the county has made reductions for all groups but disparities remain), and how the county will absorb additional supervised-release clients if MRRA reduces prison time (staff said state funding for that increase is currently unclear and counties have raised that issue with state officials). Commissioners also asked about fiscal impacts and outcome measures such as successful completion of probation.

Staff said the county has reduced the total number of people revoked to prison compared with earlier years, reported that revocation rates have declined roughly by half since a 2016 baseline, and emphasized that many reforms were implemented across partners (probation, county attorney, judicial district) and included community co-design and attention to basic needs and trauma. They noted work remains to address racial disparities and to clarify resources if state policy changes increase local supervision caseloads.

No formal board action was taken on this agenda item; the presentation was a continuation of a multi-part workshop on justice-system transformation.