Terminal CRVs

The Justice Reinvestment Act created confinement in response to violation (CRV) as an alternative to revocation for technical violations (violations other than a new criminal offense or absconding). The theory was that CRV would serve as a temporary intervention for technical violations (90 days for a felony or up to 90 days for a misdemeanor), after which the offending probationer would return to supervision to finish his or her period of probation in the community. It doesn’t always happen that way. Many CRVs are “terminal,” in the sense that they are the last thing that happens in the probation case. Today’s post summarizes the different types of terminal CRVs. In my view there are three types of “terminal CRVs.” The first type of terminal CRV is one that uses up the remainder of a defendant’s suspended term of imprisonment. For example, when a misdemeanor probationer with a 45-day suspended sentence receives a 45-day CRV, that is a terminal CRV. Even if there were many months remaining on the period of probation when the court ordered the CRV, its completion would bring about the end of the case, because there can be no further probation supervision when there is no sentence left to suspend. In that regard, this type of terminal CRV is the functional equivalent of a revocation. Obviously this type of terminal CRV is much more likely to arise in a misdemeanor case than a felony case. Felony maximum sentences are long enough that a 90-day intervention is unlikely to [...]