We undertook a Rapid Evidence Assessment to explore the existing empirical evidence relating to the impact of probation caseloads on recidivism. Over 3,000 potentially relevant papers were sifted from which five were deemed robust enough to be analysed in detail. All five were US studies which examined the impact of particular initiatives to reduce caseloads and were delivered by mainstream community-based probation officers. All recorded reductions in measured outcomes compared to comparators. Overall, although the number of robust studies remains quite small for such a key area of consideration, there appears to be a growing body of evidence that lower probation caseloads have a positive impact in terms of reducing reoffending in the USA. All five studies looked at a range of criminal justice outcomes including technical probation violations, violations for new arrests and reconvictions. Interestingly, although researchers were expecting to find a higher rate of probation violations among the cohorts supervised by probation officers with lower caseloads (due to the increased intensity of supervision), this did not turn out to be the case.

我们进行了快速证据评估，以探索与缓刑案件量对累犯的影响相关的现有经验证据。筛选出 3,000 多篇可能相关的论文，其中 5 篇被认为足够可靠，可以进行详细分析。所有五个都是美国的研究，这些研究审查了减少案件量的特定举措的影响，并由主流社区缓刑官员提供。与比较者相比，所有记录的测量结果减少。总体而言，尽管针对这样一个关键考虑领域的有力研究的数量仍然很少，但似乎有越来越多的证据表明，缓刑案件量在减少美国的再犯罪方面具有积极影响。所有五项研究都着眼于一系列刑事司法结果，包括技术缓刑违规、新逮捕和重新定罪的违法行为。有趣的是，尽管研究人员期望在案件量较低的缓刑官员监督的队列中发现更高的缓刑违规率（由于监督强度的增加），但事实并非如此。