Probation and Parole: Public Risk and the Future of Incarceration Alternatives* (original) (raw)

Probation and Parole: Overworked, Misunderstood, and Under-Appreciated: But Why?

The Howard Journal of Criminal Justice, 2008

Historically, the efficacy of probation and parole policies and practices have been judged by the general public, politicians, and many professional insiders by sensationalised crimes involving individuals sentenced to community supervision. The probation and parole profession has not established mechanisms to clearly articulate its public value; doing so would foster the development of policies and practices that derive more from empirical research evidence and sound theory than political faddism. The failure within the probation and parole profession to come to broad agreement regarding desired outcomes and to establish evidence-based and/or theoretically-sound professional principles has created a policy lacuna that is too often filled by elected officials who lack an understanding of the history, science, and philosophy of probation and parole. Probation and parole agencies should focus on producing publicly-valued results and disseminating easily-understood information that justifies their important niche within America's criminal justice system.

Recidivism Among Paroled Property Offenders Released During a Period of Prison Reform*

Criminology, 1995

Data from four successive yearly cohorts and one special early release cohort of parolees are used to explore the question of whether rapid statewide changes in the administration of criminal justice affected the patterns of recidivism among persons on parole for property offenses. Given the earlier broadly constructed research reported by , and their conclusion that variation in shifiing policies would have different effects on different types of offenses, we decided to sharpen the focus of the research questions posed by concentrating on recidivism patterns among property offenders. Three alternative explanations-compositional effects, administrative discretion, and deterrence-are explored to interpret the differences found across cohora While suggestive, these alternative explanations remain open to question given the limitations inherent in quasi-experimental research. Conclusions related to issues of prison construction policy suggest that more attention be paid to the "replacement factor, '' whereby "vacancies" left by incarcerated offenders are rapidly filled by others. I f future research supports the rapid replacement hypothesis, increased levels of incarceration will yield a larger, more experienced criminal "work force" and ironically a heightened collective potential for crime.

Recidivism Outcomes Under a Shifting Continuum of Control

American Journal of Criminal Justice

Criminal justice systems across the United States are reducing reliance on prison incarceration and moving toward more local and noncustodial types of responses to felony offenders. Rather than wholesale decarceration, states and counties are shifting felons along what we call a “continuum of control,” which allows for people who previously might have been incarcerated in state prison to be sentenced to jail, jail plus probation, or probation without a custodial spell. With some notable exceptions, existing research has focused primarily on contrasting prison versus community placements and ignored the intermediary alternatives between the poles of the continuum. In this study, we compare the recidivism outcomes of felons sentenced to prison versus those sentenced to jail, jail plus probation, and probation alone. On balance, our findings show that jail incarceration results in the same or lower rearrest and reconviction rates than incarceration in prison. We also find consistent ev...

Drivers of the Sentenced Population: Probation Analysis

2013

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. • Between 1993 and 2011, an increasing proportion of felony probationers in Illinois were accounted for by females, whites, Hispanics, and older probationers. • The majority of felons discharged from probation were successfully terminated from supervision throughout the period examined. The proportion of felons discharged from probation as a result of a revocation of probation for either a technical violation or a new offense remained stable, and relatively low (at or below 10 percent statewide), throughout the time period examined. • Success on probation can mean less reliance on prison, but failure on probation can result in commitment to the Illinois Department of Corrections. Individuals who had their probation revoked or were reconvicted of a new crime while on probation accounted for roughly 15 percent of all those sentenced to prison, a proportion that remained relatively stable through the time period examined.

Recidivism: A Multi-Level Explanation

Numerous studies have shown that several characteristics of offenders are related to their likelihood of recidivism after release from prison. Nearly all of these studies, however, have focused on offenders from just one state. Few studies have examined recidivism rates controlling for the characteristics of offenders from multiple states, and virtually none have examined recidivism rates controlling for characteristics of offenders from multiple states during different periods of time. Additionally, few studies have explored different types of recidivism across multiple jurisdictions to determine whether the same individual level factors explain variations in rearrest, reconviction, reimprisonment, and parole violations.