Parole, Desistance from Crime, and Community Integration (2008) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
1 Introduction and Background
1 Introduction and Background
Pages 7-18
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From page 7... ...
These parolees and other former prisoners are the subject of this report. Appropriate strategies to interrupt this cycle and to manage parolees and other former prisoners are needed both to improve their chances for desistance from crime and reintegration in communities, and to protect public safety.
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From page 8... ...
However, whether an inmate is released as a result of a mandatory or discretionary process, parole release is "conditional": parolees are to serve out the remainder of their sentences in the community under the supervision of state parole authorities. All states except Maine and Virginia have mandatory or discretionary parole supervision (for releasees who have not maxed out)
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From page 9... ...
Standard parole conditions are similar throughout most jurisdictions and usually include not committing crimes, not carrying a weapon, seeking and maintaining employment, reporting changes of address, reporting to one's parole agent, and paying required victim and court restitution costs. Tailored conditions are reserved for certain kinds of offenders or crimes.
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From page 10... ...
When parole agents identify a violation by a parolee, they notify their supervisors, who can initiate procedures to return a parolee to prison. High parole revocation rates are one of the major factors linked to the growing U.S.
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From page 11... ...
Parole agents, in addition to monitoring contract compliance, also provide counseling and broker community resources. In fact, parole agents historically have played an important role in providing job assistance, family counseling, and chemical dependency testing and treatment programs, mixing authority with help.
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From page 12... ...
As a result, states closed many of their mental hospitals and people with mental illnesses were increasingly arrested and jailed; most of them are eventually released on parole. In a BJS study of mental illness, using prisoners' self-reports, Ditton (1999)
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From page 13... ...
In the BJS study, rearrest rates among parolees released in 1994 were sharply higher during the next 3 years than arrest rates in the general population. Parolees accounted for an estimated 10-15 percent of all violent, property, and drug arrests between 1994 and 1997, and the share of total arrests attributable to released prisoners grew as general crime rates declined during the 1990s (Rosenfeld et al., 2005)
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From page 14... ...
First, it covers people returned to prison both for violating the terms of parole and for committing new criminal offenses, yet for public policy purposes it may be useful Generally speaking, prisons are run by states or the federal government and house people sentenced to terms of more than 1 year; jails are run by counties or other local jurisdictions and house people who have been arrested but not yet charged, who have been charged but not yet tried, or who are serving sentences of less than 1 year.
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From page 15... ...
of the U.S. Department of Justice asked the National Research Council to establish an ad hoc committee to conduct a workshop-based study on the role of parole and other forms of postrelease supervision in promoting the rehabilitation and successful reentry of former prisoners, including their desistance from criminal activity and their reintegration into families, neighborhoods, the workforce, and the civic life of the community. In accordance with the terms of the charge, the workshop focused on the empirical underpinnings and evaluations of new or emerging models of community supervision and the likelihood that these kinds of models can promote various distinct outcomes, such as desistance from crime and adherence to conditions of parole, as well as institutional support for the service needs of ex-prisoners and their families. The workshop provided a basis for the development of a research agenda that is addressed in the report. The presentations and discussions at the workshop were designed to consider the following topics: 1.
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From page 16... ...
The proposed legislation also called for studies of the effects on children of having an incarcerated parent; the characteristics and circumstances of former prisoners who do not return to prison; and returning prisoners who present special challenges, such as having severe mental illness, and those who represent the greatest threat to public safety. Although this legislative proposal was not enacted, it is clear that the subject of the reentry of former prisoners to society is a major public policy issue.
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From page 17... ...
There are also several classes of offenders that we do not consider explicitly, in part because of the lack of research. We do not explicitly consider the special legal, supervision, and treatment issues connected with sex offenders, a topic of great public concern and controversy that merits its own comprehensive assessment.
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From page 18... ...
Chapter 6 presents the committee's summary of what is known and what needs to be known about parole and desistance, including reintegration of former prisoners. Our treatment of each of these topics is guided by the report's overarching themes of the heterogeneity of the parole population and intervention effects, especially the implementation challenges of policies and programs designed to improve the supervision of parolees in communities, address their service and treatment needs, and facilitate desistance from reoffending.
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