Holding People on Supervision Accountable Part 1

Often, we have been shaped to believe that punishment is the only way we have to hold someone accountable. We are convinced that at every instance of a recurring noncompliant behavior, people need to be punished. This microskill, Holding People on Supervision Accountable, invites you to look at behavior a little differently, from a lens of progress and not one of perfection.

Sometimes change takes time. In community supervision, people are often expected to change immediately. For example, people placed on supervision who have a serious substance use issue are expected to not use drugs from day one. For many, this is impossible to achieve without treatment and time.

Let’s compare the expectation for day-one sobriety to weight loss. Pretend that you have set a goal of losing 30 pounds. The first couple of weeks you lose 3 and 4 pounds. Are you progressing or failing? If you were on supervision under the corrections system, you would be punished for not being at the expected weight, much like a person who has a serious substance issue receives a consequence for testing positive three weeks into supervision.

Holding People on Supervision Accountable helps us remember that change takes time and that punishing people for getting better but not yet being perfect is like punishing a person for losing 4 pounds in two weeks but not being at their ideal weight immediately. Remember, when we see people making progress on their goals, we want to be careful to reinforce their progress and not inadvertently punish them for not being perfect.

Holding People on Supervision Accountable Part 2

Accountability is an important component in the change process. There are times when we will want to recognize the progress a person has made instead of addressing the reoccurrence of noncompliant behavior, and at other times we will want to address the behavior as quickly as possible using our relationship coupled with an external consequence. When we see behavior that is going in the wrong direction, where progress has been lost, it is important to admonish the behavior and issue a consequence when appropriate. As we learn in this microskill, Holding People on Supervision Accountable, before we punish someone for noncompliant behavior, we will want to analyze the situation to understand if the behavior is improving or going in the wrong direction.