Together, We Can Improve Iowa's Probation System!

We have a tremendous opportunity to improve our probation system and bring safety, stability and greater opportunity to tens of thousands of Iowans. Right now, lawmakers have introduced legislation to help improve our probation system.

House File 349, introduced by House Judiciary Chairman Steve Holt and Public Safety Chairman Phil Thompson, would incentivize people on probation to pursue education and vocational training, find and maintain employment, and comply with the conditions of their probation. This will make all of us safer.

While probation is intended to support rehabilitation and keep our communities safe, it can often become a web of confusing, ineffective and destabilizing rules that make it difficult to find a way out of the criminal justice system and achieve stability.

The impact of being on probation echoes throughout a person’s life, depressing their earnings and opportunities for decades. Nationally, about two-thirds of people on probation are estimated to make less than $20,000 annually. 

This is in part because of the obstacles (often unintended) that probation can create. When something as simple as missing a meeting can send a person to jail, organizing life around those meetings, even if it means missing work to do so, becomes the sole priority. And, when someone who is working to get back on track misses a meeting and their worst nightmare occurs as they are sent to jail, this not only impacts the individual, but also punishes the businesses that employed them, rips apart their families, and destabilizes entire communities.  

While people involved in the justice system face these barriers to obtaining and maintaining employment, Iowa continues to face a workforce crisis. Despite economic concerns like record inflation and supply chain issues, Iowa still has more than 60,000 open jobs, exceeding the number of unemployed in Iowa.

But what if, instead of being a trapdoor to crime or incarceration, probation could serve as a springboard to success and stability?

Advancement in education and maintaining quality employment are two behaviors correlated with a decreased risk of recidivism, making them two of the most powerful tools we have in our fight against crime and our plight to increase prosperity and success for all Iowans.  

House File 349 would create an incentive for people on probation to pursue full-time employment and educational attainment or vocational training, which would also help increase their marketable skills.

This evidence-based legislation represents common sense changes to Iowa’s probation system that have been effective in more than a dozen states at increasing success and reducing recidivism, helping people permanently exit the justice system, and making communities safer.