CLIENT
N/A
COMPANY
The Future Company
ROLE
Lead Researcher, Systems Thinker, Researcher, Strategist
How might we find opportunities for design interventions in the parole & probation system?
Challenge
The criminal justice system is a huge machine with vast reach and reinforcing feedback loops. We were tasked with creating an impactful design intervention, but first we needed to understand the system and where we should play. Within a month, we knew we needed to focus on a system within the system—community supervision.
This project was an investigation into Community Supervision (parole and probation). The challenge was to find where there were opportunities for a design intervention, that if leveraged, would alleviate pain and stop reincarceration.
PROCESS
We first visually laid out the system and stakeholders within that system. Then we immersed ourselves in the experience and prototyped ideas to uncover unmet needs. Then we used all we learned to develop a systems map that identified leverage points.
This project was actually a pitch, meaning we did not have a budget to compensate interviewees or pay for field visits. The lack of resources limited our research methods but we were resourceful and successful as you’ll see below!
What it all led to
The investigation revealed Parole Officers and their relationships with their “cases” as a huge leverage point in the system as seen in our research presentation. Focusing on P.O.s needs, transforming how they think about and do their job would in fact address the biggest unmet need of people under supervision: a support system. The Future Company is no longer around so below you’ll find my pitch presentation to Vera Institute, a nonprofit dedicated to criminal justice, to take on this project and lead the next stage of design research.
The Work
Diagramming
Reading reports by the Columbia Justice Lab, Harvard Kennedy School, and the Bureau of Justice Statistics helped us create visual diagrams and maps of the criminal justice system, parole system and experience of people under control. It was a lot of sense making!
LISTENING & CONDUCTING InterviewS
We attended conferences, interviewed a former parolee, and an an expert from Vera Institute of Justice, a nonprofit focused on justice reform (RIP Fred Patrick). To supplement these we read stories and interviews of parolees and parole officers on The Marshall Project, Vice and other articles.
IMMERSION & Prototyping
We attended Nature of the Crime, an interactive play written and acted by people under supervision. It was wildly powerful and emotional. Low fidelity reentry handbooks were prototyped to see how designers & parolees reacted to the information and the medium.
Themes, Causes & Effects, Loops
SYSTEMS Mapping
