Study Calls for Abolishing Probation and Parole

Federal probation officer. Photo courtesy CJUSJobs.

The nation’s probation and parole systems tether millions of Americans to a strategy that has failed to deliver its promised results of reducing incarceration and recidivism, says a research study published in the Annual Review of Criminology of the American Society of Criminology (ASC). 

 An analysis of carceral, supervision and crime data from 50 states between 1980 and 2019 reveals that despite a decline in the number of people under community supervision, incarceration and crime rates have not been substantially affected, according to the authors of the study.

“If probation and parole are not improving public safety, are associated with higher incarceration rates, and are accompanied by negative outcomes, it is logical to ask not only why so many people are under supervision, but also why it is used at all,” the study said.

The researchers noted that even in states where reforms have registered some success–such as New York and California—reduction in community supervision populations has not substantially altered the implicit bias of a system that disproportionately affects poor people of color.

“Abolishment of probation and parole (should) be considered, carefully attempted, and researched,” they declared.

The authors have been prominent critics of probation and parole: Evangeline Lopoo, Project Manager of Research and Writing of the Square One Project; Vincent Schiraldi, senior research scientist at the Columbia University School of Social Work, and most recently head of the New York City Department of Correction; and Timothy Ittner, Paul F. Lazarsfeld Fellow in the Department of Sociology at Columbia University.

Their study comes in the wake of a growing national movement to overhaul community supervision. In 2019, over 100 current and former supervision practitioners formed an advocacy group called EXiT (Executives Transforming Probation and Parole) to call for probation and parole to be “substantially downsized, less punitive, and more hopeful, equitable, and restorative.”

The ASC study represents the most cohesive, evidence-based argument to date for abolition.

“The efficacy of supervision is not supported by research—a conclusion made evident by the fact that twice as many people are under supervision as are incarcerated in the United States,” the authors wrote.

3.9M Americans Under Community Supervision

According to the most recent available data, 3.9 million Americans are under some form of justice system supervision, or about one in every 66 adults.

Their lives are strictly regulated by conditions that can include the prohibition of alcohol consumption; zero contact with others with criminal records, including family members; enforcement of a strict curfew, regardless of work shifts; and regularly scheduled meetings with a supervisor.

Violation of any single condition—called a Technical Violation—can send the individual back to prison.

Studies have shown that technical violations—rather than the commission of new crimes—are a leading driver of high prison admissions.

Ironically, the unpredictability and arbitrariness of the system has undermined the original goals of rehabilitation.

The study cited a survey of people recently admitted to prison in Texas, which showed that 66 percent preferred incarceration over 10 years of probation.  The options of three years or five years of probation were preferable to, respectfully, just 32 percent and 49 percent of survey respondents.

Black respondents were most likely to favor incarceration over probation, underlining racial disparities in how probation is administered, the study noted..

Over half of the individuals on probation are white, although they make up 33 percent of people in prison, according to a 2017 study cited by the authors.

“Probation supervision contributes to racial disparities in imprisonment, both by diverting more white defendants to probation initially and by revoking Black probationers at greater rates,” the 2017 study by sociologist Michelle Phelps concluded.

The American Society of Criminology study explored in detail the result of community supervision reforms in New York and California, two states where efforts to overhaul the system have achieved considerable traction.

California Downsizes

In 2006, California’s prisons reached 200 percent of their capacity. A special panel of three federal judges mandated downsizing the population to 137.5 percent capacity in 2019. This was followed by California’s Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Act, which reduced six felony offenses to misdemeanors and lowered the population eligible for prison and more extended felony probation terms.

As part of the law, the reduced offenses came with relatively short and unsupervised local probations.

By 2020, the state had cut the number of people in prison by nearly half. According to the report, the prison population dropped to 100,000 people from 175,512.

Additionally, supervision rates experienced a similar reduction of 42 percent, helping save hundreds of millions of dollars annually.

Between 2007 and 2020, California’s number of people incarcerated in prisons or under supervision fell from 652,015 to 416,387, a 36 percent decrease.

New York City Considers Abolition

New York City took a starker route, effectively abolishing many components of the system through cultural change rather than litigation. This produced one of the largest rates of decarceration in urban America.

Once notorious for its high crime rate, New York City’s average number of people in jails dropped from 21,764 to 4,974, a 77 percent reduction from 1991 to 2020.

Additionally, from 1989 to 2017, there was a 46 percent decline in felony arrests. In a shorter span from 2010 to 2017, the report found a 37 percent decline in misdemeanor arrests in New York City.

In some cases, the city introduced kiosks for supervision rather than probation officers, which lowered recidivism.

Other changes made by the city included the creation of The Drug Treatment Alternative to Prison (DTAP) program, established in 1990, which shifted people to treatment who were targeted by New York’s Rockefeller Drug Laws, which mandated imprisonment.

Research by Columbia University’s Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse found DTAP participants were 36 percent less likely to be re-convicted and 67 percent less likely to return to prison after two years than a matched comparison group.

More recently, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed the “Less is More” Community Supervision and Revocation Reform Act slated to go into effect in September. It aims to reduce the use of pre-adjudication detention.

Putting the ‘Community’ Back in Community Supervision

Less is More provides Earned Time Credits so that people on parole who abide by the rules get 30 days off for every 30 days of compliance. These credits apply retroactively for up to two years of earned credit.

Upon signing, Gov. Hochul immediately released 191 people who had already served 30 days of their sentence and otherwise qualified under Less is More standards from Rikers Island, New York City’s leading jail complex.

The New York experience can serve as a model for going beyond downsizing to achieve the elimination of probation and parole, and replacing it with a more community-centric form of supervision that emphases accountability, the study said.

Furthermore, the study authors suggested, the savings from abolishing the system could be reinvested in communities to improve neighborhood cohesion

“It can put the ‘community’ back in community supervision,” the study’s authors wrote, adding that the result would be “more safety and equity.”

Evangeline Lopoo is the Project Manager of the Probation and Parole Reform Project Research and Writing of the Square One Project , a leading nonprofit advocacy group for corrections and probation reform.

Vincent Schiraldi is a senior research scientist at the Columbia University School of Social Work, co-founder of the Columbia University Justice and a former supervisor of juvenile and adults correctgions and probation systems in Washington, DC and New York.

Timothy Ittner is a Ph.D. student and Paul F. Lazarsfeld Fellow in the Department of Sociology at Columbia University.

Additional Reading:

 The Lesson of Meek Mill: A Probation System ‘Set Up to Fail The Crime Report, Jan. 31, 2018 (Michelle Phelps)

REVOKED: How Probation and Parole Feed Mass Incarceration in the United States. Human Rights Watch/ACLU Report, 2018.

Changing the Culture of Community Supervision, The Crime Report, Dec 10, 2019

Does Community Supervision Have a Future? The Crime Report, March 1, 2019

Probation Puts Drug Offenders at Greater Risk of Returning to Prison: Paper, The Crime Report, June 23, 2021

 TCR Associate Editor James Van Bramer and Executive Editor Stephen Handelman prepared this summary.