The COVID-19 pandemic has created extreme challenges for community corrections agencies across the United States, a population at high risk for infectious diseases due to a prevalence of social, economic, and behavioral risk factors. Project RAPID will measure and track agency-level responses to prevent, contain, and respond to the COVID-19 outbreak. Additionally, this project will examine how community corrections (the largest arm of the corrections system) respond to the COVID-19 pandemic and balance public health and public safety. Consequently, this study will investigate the circumstances under which community supervision agencies alter their policies and procedures during the COVID-19 pandemic while examining the pandemic's impact on community supervision officers' physical and mental health. Through surveys and interviews with community supervision administrators and officers, and based on a theory of organizational change, this project will take a longitudinal approach to examine how community corrections agencies adapt during the COVID-19 pandemic. These methods will enable a study of the circumstances under which community supervision agencies alter their policies and procedures during the COVID-19 pandemic. This project will produce data and research results that will provide key information on the strategies agencies use during the COVID-19 pandemic. Findings will aid scholarship and agency decision-making in response to the COVID-19 pandemic while informing the development of plans to protect correctional staff and clients' health and well-being in future infectious disease events.
The goal of our study is to collect data from agencies across the country and share it widely to help agencies develop their prevention/response strategies and share information.

Orlando, Florida, USA