Abstract
Parole supervision has been a somewhat overlooked field in recent years, even as the challenges of prisoner reentry have attracted increasing attention. Parole supervision can and should play an important role in facilitating successful reentry, yet parole agencies must systematically adopt the practices and policies that have been demonstrated to work. To examine the current state of parole practice, the Urban Institute conducted a survey of parole supervision field offices. The findings of the survey are summarized in this report, and suggest that the principles of effective supervision are beginning to take root.
The text below is an excerpt from the complete document. Read the full report in PDF format.
Introduction
Parole supervision matters. Much has been written
about prisoner reentry and the cost of failing to reintegrate
the hundreds of thousands of people who are released from prison each year.
The role of parole supervision, which is intimately connected to prisoner reentry and
the maintenance of public safety, has often been lost in that discussion. Yet the majority
of prison releases, over 500,000 annually, are to parole supervision; just over 824,000
individuals were under parole supervision at the end of 2007 (Glaze and Bonczar 2008).
Parole supervision can, and should, be an integral part of delivering public safety for
the community at large. In facilitating the transition from prison to community, parole
supervision agencies can help parolees become productive citizens and reduce the
harm they might cause by returning to crime, substance abuse, and other problematic
behaviors. And they do return to those behaviors. More than two-thirds of those
released from prison will be arrested, and more than half will be reincarcerated within
three years (Langan and Levin 2002). To make matters worse, those who are released
to parole supervision typically fare no better than those released without supervision
(Solomon, Kachnowski, and Bhati 2005). Unable or unwilling to desist from crime, stay
sober, secure a job, or find stable housing, many parolees will be returned to prison,
at a tremendous cost to society.
Most states have not invested sufficiently in parole supervision or in the agencies that
are responsible for protecting the general public and supervising individuals released from prison. Incarceration costs nearly 10 times as much as community supervision,
and the vast majority of corrections spending is devoted to prisons (Pew Center on
the States 2009). Similarly, legislators, policymakers, and the media tend to pay greater
attention to institutional corrections than to community supervision. Meanwhile, parole
agencies are struggling to cope with increasingly large caseloads and limited financial
and human resources.
In this environment, implementing even a modicum of change might seem daunting.
Yet among those who practice and study parole supervision a consensus is emerging
that the field must adopt new approaches if it is to accomplish its mission of protecting
public safety and rehabilitating offenders. Specifically, there is broad agreement
that the field should move toward models of behavioral change, including the adoption
of evidence-based practices and other best practices. (See box 1 for a discussion
of the distinction between EBPs and best practices.)
(End of excerpt. The entire report is available in PDF format.)
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