< PreviousTRANSLATING RESEARCH other violations, significantly limiting the options available. Outside of new crimes and behaviors involving people with sex offenses, the only remaining way to return a person on parole to prison was due to a violation related to electronic monitoring devices. This resulted in a policy that echoed legislation and an organizational culture that already proved resistance to changing its approach to breaches. Once an electronic monitoring violation became one of the only remaining avenues for revoking a person’s parole, it should have come as no surprise that the use of electronic monitoring skyrocketed because of the change initiative. Reform efforts often bump up against organizational culture and mindsets or habits that resist new procedures and ways of working, even when required by law. From this perspective, one can think of those mindsets and habits as the “last mile problem” in the implementation of reform legislation. Intelligent, passionate, and dedicated people can craft legislation. But getting that to translate into practice requires agencies large and small to operationalize the reform into new job functions, mindsets, and habits that change the way they do their work. What we learned in Colorado was that reforming the approach to the work took more than simply new laws and policies. In Colorado specifically, legislative reform to address violation behavior had been occurring for more than a decade starting in 2010 with HB 1360, in 2015 with SB 124 and HB 1172, in 2017 with HB 1308 and HB 1326, and then again in 2019 with SB 143. Implementation as a Priority Data on change initiatives across disciplines is clear; they are most likely to fail. In the human service field, most legislation requires that people within organizations either shift their focus or completely change the way they do business. Either way, the data on people-dependent change initiatives is even less promising, with 80-90% of initiatives failing to reach full implementation (Fixsen et al., 2019). This translates to well-intentioned policies and practices never actualizing results for the people they are supposed to serve. Without guided and directed implementation support, most legislative initiatives are merely a well-intentioned exercise in futility. Scientific and strategic implementation work requires formal tools and structured interventions to guide organizations, leadership, and people to systematically make impactful changes. Without it, people are relegated to legacy strategies, best guesses, and personal agendas to guide the work. As the legislative session approaches, legislators can reconsider how they craft, structure, and design legislation to support success. This requires using an implementation framework to account for the people, data, culture, leadership, and feedback dynamics involved. Effective implementation involves five dynamics: people, data, culture, leadership, and feedback. These dynamics guide the purposeful and intentional actions required to reach full implementation (i.e., as mentioned above, having at least 50% of practitioners delivering new policies, practices, and programs with fidelity) (Fixsen et al., 2019). Together they create alignment between an ideal state and what is happening on the ground. While each dynamic is essential, the people dynamic is especially critical, as people are the most important and valuable resource within organizations. They are responsible for executing the policies, practices, and programming that drive intended results—and they often create barriers, both intentional and unintentional, to full implementation. It is critically important who is selected to support the change effort, how they are supported, and how new champions for the work are developed over time. This translates to the need for legislation to include timeframes that support selecting the right people, training, and coaching for proper skill development, and supporting mid-level staff to champion the work beyond changes at the highest leadership level. It takes more time, energy, and effort to engage in new processes and service delivery than to maintain the status quo. As such, organizations need time to prepare their people, letting them become familiar with new practices and procedures and building a foundation that supports the work. Of equal importance is creating avenues for people to exit should they find themselves unable to align with the change. Implementation of any change requires data to drive decisions about both progress and quality. Too often, organizations are situated either within a data desert, where they have very little data to show the impact of their work, or are experiencing data saturation, where there is so much data that people do not know what exists, how to engage with it, or how to connect data points to understand the impact. The data dynamic requires that organizations build the capacity to become data-driven about the things that matter most. This means identifying the core components of legislation and measuring both the implementation process and the progress, or the change that is taking place. Too often initiatives are adjusted or replaced before they have been properly implemented, suggesting that what was changed could have been more effective when, in truth, it was likely never fully implemented in the first place.TRANSLATING RESEARCH The culture dynamic pertains to the habits, rules, mindsets, and conversations that occur within an organization. When legislated mandates rub up against or clash with organizational culture, making a meaningful change can be even more difficult. Organizational culture is often invisible to the people on the inside yet can be a powerful driver of progress or lack thereof. Organizational culture characteristics that drive implementation success include flexibility, innovation, professional development, risk-taking, and trust. Possession of these characteristics must extend beyond the leader of an organization to the staff within it—those who are ultimately responsible for making changes happen in their day-to-day work. These characteristics are in direct conflict with the culture of many government and justice agencies, where process, bureaucracy, a chain of command, and control tend to be emphasized. Legislation should support the efforts of organizations to step outside of their proverbial comfort zones by creating flexibility and risk-taking in the implementation process, thereby allowing changes to be adapted and tailored to meet the needs of the organizations and those they serve. The leadership dynamic is also powerful when it comes to creating lasting change within organizations and communities. The very nature of executive leadership positions within the government, often at-will positions that change erratically, can destabilize even the best- resourced efforts. When organizations experience multiple leadership changes in quick succession, staff can experience a series of confusing, sometimes incompatible visions that may or may not align with the legislative intention. Consider too that the nature and design of the legislature can be a source of destabilization as well, for legislatures are prone to political pendulum shifts and passage of agenda-based bills that may or may not be explicitly clear. As discussed above, the legislature can also put pressure on agencies to implement numerous, sometimes incompatible, legislated mandates at the same time, creating misalignment within agencies. Agencies must have highly skilled leaders who can integrate these requirements into a clear and comprehensive vision for the future. Implementation science, at its foundation, presumes that strategies and processes will change over time through experimentation and feedback. Through recursive feedback loops, organizations can look for opportunities to get information about their work in practice and the impact it has, not just for themselves but for other stakeholders and the people they serve. The feedback dynamic is about creating processes that help leaders and teams determine what is being implemented and the impact it is having internally and externally. It is not uncommon for leaders to overestimate what is happening at the ground level. Without feedback, it can take years for organizations to realize that what was believed to be happening at the ground level is, in fact, not taking place and that they have fallen far short of what was required of them. Conclusion: A More Impactful Approach to Legislation There is no shortage of great ideas, many of which would make a substantial difference in the functioning of the criminal legal system IF they were implemented well. The challenge here is that implementation takes time, considerable effort, and long-term commitment to the process–all of which are in short supply in the rapidly changing policy landscape. Committing to sustainability is hard. Change and possibilities are far more energizing and fascinating. Sustainability is critical to our success and requires fighting the urge to introduce the next new shiny thing because things “aren’t working” even though they have not been fully implemented yet. Abandoning or shifting programs before full implementation is costly and counterproductive, creating considerable challenges with organizational culture, affecting stakeholder engagement, and causing communities to suffer with each failed or retracted change. A lack of clarity and insufficient data on whether newly adapted practices are working causes the reinvention of reforms (over and over again) and an assessment of practices believed to be the problem. As our implementation knowledge base increases, so does our commitment to using effective implementation strategies in practice. If this occurs, socially significant improvements in the criminal legal system can be expected in the next few decades (Fixsen et al., 2019). This study’s rudimentary review of legislation clearly demonstrates that all legislation requires implementation. Therefore, change via legislation requires considerable support and time baked into the process. Two to four years of dedicated resources, expert implementation teams, and a “hyperfocus” on singular implementation efforts are minimal requirements for implementing each legislative requirement well and with high quality and ultimately understanding whether it has made a meaningful impact. Leaders must commit to comprehending and developing their knowledge and skills related to implementation and leading change efforts to avoid common pitfalls that are costly and destructive. As hard as it is to admit, accurate implementation takes TRANSLATING RESEARCH time. Most implementation efforts fail. Change that requires people to modify what they think, believe, and how they show up at worse, even less likely to succeed. When change initiatives fizzle, fade, and fail because of poor implementation, cynicism and belief that nothing makes a difference are fueled. As such, change initiatives that come about via legislation must be adequately funded to include implementation supports related to people, data, organizational culture, leadership, and feedback. Legislators must provide funding for and require updates on implementation process outcomes. It is also important to resist the urge to evaluate program outcomes before the program is fully implemented. This leads to a misunderstanding of whether the program “works” or not. A program cannot work as intended if it is never fully implemented. Consider asking questions about fidelity, probing for unintentional workarounds, and ensuring that policy makes it into practice in the first place while avoiding mandates and demands for the program and/or practice outcomes early on. References Beer, M., & Nohria, N. (2000). Cracking the code of change.HBR’s 10 must reads on change,78(3), 133- 141. Bonta, J., & Andrews, D. A. (2016).The psychology of criminal conduct. Routledge. Burrell, W. D., & Rhine, E. E. (2013). Implementing evidence-based practices in community corrections: A review essay.Justice Research and Policy,15(1), 143-157. Colorado Division of Criminal Justice (2008). What Works: Effective Recidivism Reduction and Risk Focused Prevention Programs. Accessed: https://cdpsdocs.state. co.us/ccjj/Resources/Ref/2008_WhatWorks.pdf Evident Change (2021). Evaluation of the LA Model. https://www.evidentchange.org/sites/default/files/LA%20 Model%20Final%20Report.pdf Fixsen, D. L., Van Dyke, M. K., & Blase, K. A. (2019). Science and implementation.Active Implementation Research Network. Retrieved August,7, 2021. Gendreau, P., Smith, P., & French, S. A. (2017). The theory of effective correctional intervention: Empirical status and future directions.Taking Stock, 419-446. Latessa, E. J., & Lowenkamp, C. (2005). What works in reducing recidivism.U. St. Thomas LJ,3, 521. Martinson, R. (1974). What works?-Questions and answers about prison reform.The public interest,35, 22. Maruna, S., Immarigeon, R., & LeBel, T. P. (2013). Ex- offender reintegration: Theory and practice. InAfter crime and punishment(pp. 21-44). Willan. Rhine, E. E., Mawhorr, T. L., & Parks, E. C. (2006). Implementation: The bane of effective correctional programs.Criminology & Public Policy,5(2), 347-358. Tapia, G. A., & Walker, A. (2020). The 10 Essential Principles of Implementation Leadership: Real-World Applications of Change Leadership Acumen.Fed. Probation,84, 11. Taxman, F. S., & Caudy, M. S. (2015). Risk tells us who, but not what or how: Empirical assessment of the complexity of criminogenic needs to inform correctional programming.Criminology & Public Policy,14(1), 71- 103. Times Editorial Board (2021). The ‘L.A. Model’ of Juvenile Rehabilitation: Great in theory, untested in real life. The Los Angeles Times. https://www.latimes. com/opinion/story/2021-07-14/juvenile-justice-failure Wolfe, R. A. (1995). Human resource management innovations: Determinants of their adoption and implementation.Human Resource Management,34(2), 313-327. Biographical note: With over 20 years of experience, Dr. Alexandra (Alex) Walker has considerable background implementing innovative justice reform strategies in organizations big and small. As a Founding Member of the Alliance for Community and Justice Innovation, she partners with agencies to address alignment and implementation. This work focuses on clearly identifying desired outcomes and building innovative systems to support the people, data, culture, and leadership factors that aid the work. Leveraging her experience as a public speaker and implementer, Alex specializes in facilitating small and large group workshops, presentations, and engagement events to identify and address alignment and adaptive challenges when implementing transformational change. Johanna Leal has 20 years of experience leading innovative justice reform efforts in community and government agencies. As a Founding Member of the Alliance for Community and Justice Innovation, she provides training, support, and technical assistance to community and faith-based organizations across the Connecting Top Employers with Premiere Professionals! Employers https://careers.appa-net.org Professionals The APPA Career Center provides all the functionality and reach of contemporary job boards while specifically focusing on the Community Corrections industry. *To receive these member benefits, login with your company’s primary APPA contact email. PLACE your job in front of qualified professionals. 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