A report by The Pew Charitable Trusts details the challenges facing parole and probation supervision systems around the country and outlines specific policy changes
that states can make to achieve improved outcomes. Since 1980, the nation’s community supervision population
has ballooned by almost 240 percent. As of 2016, 1 in 55 U.S. adults (nearly
4.5 million people) are on probation or parole, more than twice the number
incarcerated in state and federal prisons and local jails. Historically,
probation and parole were intended to provide a less punitive, more
constructive alternative to incarceration, but a growing body of evidence
suggests that a frequent emphasis on surveillance and monitoring of people
under supervision rather than on promoting their success, along with the
resource demands of ever-larger caseloads, has transformed community
supervision into a primary driver of incarceration. This shift has produced an
array of troubling consequences, not only for individuals on probation and
parole but for taxpayers and communities as well.
To address these problems, some supervision agencies have
begun to embrace evidence-based practices that have been shown to improve
outcomes and reduce recidivism. These include the use of research-based
assessment tools to identify an individual’s level of risk for reoffending,
graduated sanctions, such as increased reporting or short-term incarceration,
to respond to violations of supervision rules, and incentives to encourage rule
compliance. As a result of these and other policy changes, 37 states have experienced
simultaneous reductions in crime and community supervision rates.
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