Probation is a sentence which may be imposed by a court in lieu of incarceration.

A criminal
who is "on probation" has been convicted of a crime but has served only part of the sentence
in jail, or has not served time at all. In most jurisdictions, probation is a sentencing option for
misdemeanors and many felonies (these are commonly called "probationable" offenses), but
not for higher-order felonies, such as capital crimes, forcible rape, and many others.

An offender on probation is ordered to follow certain conditions set forth by the court, under
the supervision of a probation officer. He or she is ordinarily required to refrain from
subsequent possession of firearms, and may be ordered to remain employed, abide to a
curfew, live at a directed place, obey the orders of the probation officer, or not leave the
jurisdiction. The probationer may be ordered as well to refrain from contact with the victims
(such as a former partner in a domestic violence case), with potential victims of similar crimes
(such as minors, if the instant offense involves child sexual abuse), or with known criminals,
particularly co-defendants. The offender on probation may be fitted with an electronic tag,
which signals her or his whereabouts to officials, and it is very common for offenders to be
ordered to submit to alcohol/drug testing or to participate in alcohol/drug or psychological
treatment, or to perform Community Service work.

[edit] Overview
In the United States, both Federal and state criminal justice systems provide probation as a
sentencing option, and state or territorial probation may be administrated either by state or
local government (generally a county or court circuit). The several systems share similarities
in method, but the scope, mission, and operations vary widely. Some jurisdictions combine
probation with parole in one agency, some combine adult and juvenile probation in one
agency, and some have entirely separate systems.[1][2][3][4]

[edit] Arming and increased authority

In the United States, most probation agencies have armed officers. In 39 states, territories and
federal probation, such arming is either mandated or optional. Arming is allowed in an
increasing number of jurisdictions, as the threat to the public and the officers evolves and
increases, as does the public demand of safety and accountability.[5]

Probation officers are peace officers who possess limited police powers. In Nevada,
Oklahoma, and South Carolina, probation agencies also employ full-time police officers, who
are authorized to arrest throughout the state, have access tactical special operations units, and
are deployed to sites of emergencies and disasters. Nevada Probation and Parole, a division of
the Nevada Highway Patrol department of public safety, responded to the Hurricane Katrina
disaster to provide much needed police assistance to the devastated area.[6][7]

[edit] Types of supervision

Intensive probation, home detention, GPS monitoring These are highly intrusive forms of
probation in which the offender is very closely monitored, and it is common for violent
criminals, higher-ranking gang members, habitual offenders, and sex offenders to be
supervised at this level. Some jurisdictions require offenders under such supervision to waive
their constitutional rights under the Fourth Amendment regarding search and seizure, and
such probationers may be subject to unannounced home or workplace visits, surveillance, and
the use of electronic monitoring or satellite tracking. GPS monitoring and home detention are
common in juvenile cases, even if the underlying crime is minor.

Standard supervision Offenders under standard supervision are generally required to report
to an officer, most commonly between biweekly and quarterly, and are subject to any other
conditions as may have been ordered (as described above: treatment, community service, and
so on).

Unsupervised probation does not involve direct supervision by an officer. The probationer is
expected to complete any conditions of the order without the involvement of an officer,
perhaps within a shorter period. For example, given one year of unsupervised probation, a
probationer might be required to have completed community service, paid court costs or fines,
etc., within the first six months. For the remaining six months, he or she may merely be
required to refrain from unlawful behavior. Such probationers may be asked to meet with an
officer at the onset or near the end of the probationary period, or not at all. If terms are not
completed, an officer may file a petition to revoke probation.

Informal supervision is supervised or unsupervised probation without having been found

guilty of a crime. (It should be noted that it therefore constitutes a violation of the alleged
offender's rights of the accused.) Probation terms such as search clauses or drug testing may
be included. At the end of the informal supervision period, the case is dismissed.

[edit] History
The concept of probation, from the Latin, probatio, "testing," has historical roots in the
practice of judicial reprieve. In English common law, the courts could temporarily suspend
the execution of a sentence to allow the defendant to appeal to the Crown for a pardon.
Probation first developed in the United States when John Augustus, a Boston boot maker,
persuaded a judge in the Boston police court in 1841 to give him custody of a convicted
offender, a "drunkard," for a brief period and then helped the man to appear rehabilitated by
the time of sentencing. Even earlier, the practice of suspending a sentence was used as early
as 1830 in Boston, Massachusetts, and became widespread in U.S. Courts, although there was
no statutory provision for such a practice. At first, judges, most notably Peter Oxenbridge
Thatcher of Boston, used "release on recognizance" or bail and simply refrained from taking
any further action. In 1878 the mayor of Boston hired a former police officer, one "Captain
Savage," to become what many recognize as the first official probation officer. By the mid-
19th century, however, many Federal Courts were using a judicial reprieve to suspend
sentence, and this posed a legal question. In 1916, the United States Supreme Court, in the
Killets Decision, held that a Federal Judge (Killets) was without power to suspend a sentence
indefinitely. This famous court decision led to the passing of the National Probation Act of
1925, thereby, allowing courts to suspend the imposition of incarceration and place an
offender on probation.

Massachusetts developed the first state wide probation system in 1880, and by 1920, 21 other
states had followed suit. With the passage of the National Probation Act on March 5, 1925,
signed by President Calvin Coolidge, the U.S. Federal Probation Service was established. On
the state level, pursuant to the Crime Control and Consent Act of 1936, a group of states
entered into an agreement wherein they would supervise probationers and parolees who reside
in each other's jurisdictions on each other's behalf. for each other. Known as the Interstate
Compact For the Supervision of Parolees and Probationers, this agreement was originally
signed by 25 states in 1937. By 1951, all the states in the United States of America had a
working probation system and ratified the Interstate Compact Agreement. In 1959, the new
states of Alaska and Hawaii, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and the territories of the
Virgin Islands, Guam, and American Samoa ratified the act as well.

[edit] Theory
Probation began as a humanitarian effort to allow first-time and minor offenders a second
chance. Early probationers were expected not only to obey the law but also to behave in a
morally acceptable fashion. Officers sought to provide moral leadership to help shape
probationers' attitudes and behavior with respect to family, religion, employment, and free
time. They aimed to ensure that this was enforced as well, and early probationers were given
the opportunity to prove themselves and possibly even reduce their sentence.

From the 1920s through the 1950s, the major developments in the field of psychology led
probation officers to shift their emphasis from moral leadership to therapeutic counseling.
This shift brought three important changes. First, the officer no longer primarily acted as a
community supervisor charged with enforcing a particular morality. Second, the officer
became more of a social worker whose goal was to help the offender solve psychological and
social problems. Third, the offender was expected to become actively involved in the
treatment. The pursuit of rehabilitation as the primary goal of probation gave the officer
extensive discretion in defining and treating the offender's problems. Officers used their
judgment to evaluate each offender and develop a treatment approach to the personal
problems that presumably had led to crime. Many states offered to dismiss or expunge the
conviction if the probationer fulfilled the terms of the probation.

During the 1960s, major social changes swept across the United States. These changes also
affected the field of community corrections. Rather than counseling offenders, probation
officers provided them with concrete social services such as assistance with employment,
housing, finances, and education. This emphasis on reintegrating offenders and remedying the
social problems they faced was consistent with federal efforts to wage a "War on Poverty." A
probation officer became less of a counselor or therapist, and more of an advocate, dealing
with private and public institutions on the offender's behalf.

In the late 1970s the orientation of probation changed again as the goals of rehabilitation and
reintegration gave way to "risk management." This approach, still dominant today, seeks to
reduce the likelihood that an offender will commit a new offense. Risk management reflects
two basic goals. First, in accord with the deserved-punishment ideal, the punishment should
fit the offense, and correctional intervention should neither increase nor diminish the severity
of punishment. Second, according to the community protection criterion, the amount and type
of supervision are determined according to the risk that the probationer will return to
lawbreaking.

[edit] Violation
A probation officer may imprison a probationer and petition the court for violation of
probation. The court will request that the defendant prove their innocence at an order to show
cause hearing. If the defendant is unable to challenge the presumption of guilt at the hearing,
the officer or prosecutor may request that additional conditions of probation be imposed, that
the duration be extended, or that a period of incarceration be ordered. There is no invariant
rule as to what circumstances warrant a violation hearing, although conviction of a subsequent
offense, or failure to report (to the officer) are nearly universal.

If a violation is found, the severity of the penalties may depend upon the facts of the original
offense, the facts of the violation, and the probationer's criminal history. For example, if an
offender is on probation for a gang-related offense, subsequent "association with known
criminals" may be viewed as a more serious violation than if the person were on probation for
driving a car with a suspended license; the reverse may be true if the initial offense were for
driving under the influence. Similarly, penalties for violation may be greater if a subsequent
offense is of greater severity (such as a felony, following a misdemeanor), or if the original
offense and subsequent offense are of the same type (such as a battery following an assault, or
retail theft following retail theft).

Parole may have different meanings depending on the field and judiciary system. All of the
meanings originated from the French parole, meaning "(spoken) word". Following its use in
late-medieval Anglo-French chivalric practice, the term became associated with the release of
prisoners based on prisoners giving their word of honor to abide by certain restrictions. Parole
should not be confused with probation, as parole is serving the remainder of a sentence
outside of prison, where probation is given instead of a prison sentence and as such, tends to
place more rigid obligations upon the individual serving the term.

Contents
[hide]

 1 Criminal justice
 2 Difference Between Parole and Mandatory Supervision
 3 Early history of parole
 4 China
 5 Italy
 6 United States
o 6.1 Early history
o 6.2 Modern history
o 6.3 US immigration law
 7 Prisoners of war
 8 See also
 9 References
 10 External links
[edit] Criminal justice
In criminal justice systems, parole is the supervised release of a prisoner before the
completion of their sentence in prison. This differs from amnesty or commutation of sentence
in that parolees are still considered to be serving their sentences, and may be returned to
prison if they violate the conditions of their parole. A specific type of parole is medical parole
or compassionate release which is the release of prisoners on medical or humanitarian
grounds. Conditions of parole often include things such as obeying the law, refraining from
drug and alcohol use, avoiding contact with the parolee's victims, obtaining employment, and
maintaining required contacts with a parole officer.

[edit] Difference Between Parole and Mandatory

Supervision
Some states in the US have what is known as "mandatory supervision," whereby an inmate is
released prior to the completion of their sentence due to legal technicalities which oblige the
criminal justice system to free them. In some states such as Texas, inmates are compensated
with "good time," which is counted towards time served. For example, if an inmate served
five years of a ten year prison term, and also had five years of "good time," they will have
completed their sentence "on paper," obliging the state to release them. Where parole is
granted or denied at the discretion of a parole board, mandatory supervision does not involve
a decision making process: one either qualifies for it or does not. Mandatory supervision tends
to involve stipulations that are more lenient than those of parole, and in some cases place no
obligations at all on the individual being released.

[edit] Early history of parole

Alexander Maconochie, a Scottish geographer and captain in the British Royal Navy,
introduced the modern idea of parole when, in 1840, he was appointed superintendent of the
English penal colonies in Norfolk Island, Australia. He developed a plan to prepare them for
eventual return to society that involved three grades. The first two consisted of promotions
earned through good behavior, labor, and study. The third grade in the system involved
conditional liberty outside of prison while obeying rules. A violation would return them to
prison and starting all over again through the ranks of the three grade process.[1]

[edit] China
In China, prisoners are often granted medical parole or compassionate release, which releases
them on the grounds that they must receive medical treatment which cannot be provided for in
prison. Occasionally, medical parole is used as a no-publicity way of releasing an accidentally
imprisoned convict.[2][3]

The Chinese legal code has no explicit provision for exile, but often a dissident is released on
the grounds that they need to be treated for a medical condition in another country, and with
the understanding that they will be reincarcerated if they return to China. Dissidents who have
been released on medical parole include Ngawang Chophel, Ngawang Sangdrol, Phuntsog
Nyidron, Takna Jigme Zangpo, Wang Dan, Wei Jingsheng, Gao Zhan and Fang Lizhi. Exiling
a dissident in most cases destroys them politically, as they are no longer seen as a martyr
within China.[citation needed]

[edit] Italy
Main article: Libertà condizionata

Libertà condizionata is covered by Article 176 of the Italian Penal Code. A prisoner is
eligible if he has served at least 30 months (or 26 years for life sentences), and the time
remaining on his sentence is less than half the total (normally), a quarter of the total (if
previously convicted or never convicted) or five years (for sentences >7.5 years). 21 inmates
were granted libertà condizionata in 2006.[citation needed]

[edit] United States

[edit] Early history

Penologist Zebulon Brockway first introduced parole when he became superintendent of

Elmira Reformatory in New York state. In order to manage prison populations and
rehabilitate those incarcerated he instituted a two part strategy that consisted of indeterminate
sentences and parole releases.[4]

[edit] Modern history

In the United States, courts may specify in a sentence how much time must be served before a
prisoner is eligible for parole. This is often done by specifying an indeterminate sentence of,
say, "15 to 25 years," or "15 years to life". The latter type is known as an indeterminate life
sentence; in contrast, a sentence of "life without the possibility of parole" is known as a
determinate life sentence.[5]

In most states, the decision of whether an inmate is paroled is vested in a paroling authority
such as a parole board. Mere good conduct while incarcerated in and of itself does not
necessarily guarantee that an inmate will be paroled. Other factors may enter into the decision
to grant or deny parole, most commonly the establishment of a permanent residence and
immediate, gainful employment or some other clearly visible means of self-support upon
release (such as Social Security if the prisoner is old enough to qualify). Many states now
permit sentences of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole (such as for murder
and espionage), and any prisoner not sentenced to either this or the death penalty will
eventually have the right to petition for release (one state – Alaska – maintains neither the
death penalty nor life imprisonment without parole as sentencing options).

Before being granted the privilege of parole, the inmate meets with members of the parole
board and is interviewed, The parolee also has a psychological exam. The inmate must first
agree to abide by the conditions of parole set by the paroling authority. While in prison, the
inmate signs a parole certificate or contract. On this contract are the conditions that the inmate
must follow. These conditions usually require the parolee to meet regularly with his or her
parole officer or community corrections agent, who assesses the behavior and adjustment of
the parolee and determines whether the parolee is violating any of his or her terms of release
(typically these include being at home during certain hours which is called a curfew,
maintaining steady employment, not absconding, refraining from illicit drug use and
sometimes, abstaining from alcohol), attend drug or alcohol counseling, have no contact with
their victim. The inmate gives an address which is verified by parole officers as valid before
inmate is released on to parole supervision. When release the parolee goes to a parole office
and is assigned a parole officer. Parole officers go to parolees houses or apartments to check
on them as unannounced visits. During these home visits officers look for signs of drug or
alcohol use, no guns or illegal weapons are in the parolees residence, and look for signs of
other illegal activities. Should parolees start to use drugs or alcohol, they are told to go to drug
or alcohol counseling and NA or AA meeting. Should they not comply with conditions on the
parole certificate a warrant is issued for their arrest. Their parole time is stopped when the
warrant is issued and starts only after they are arrested. They have a parole violation hearing
within a specified time, and then a decision is made by the parole board to revoke their parole
or continue the parolee on parole. In some cases, a parolee may be discharged from parole
before the time called for in the original sentence if it is determined that the parole restrictions
are no longer necessary for the protection of society (this most frequently occurs when elderly
parolees are involved).

Service members who commit crimes while in the US military may be subject to Court
Martial proceedings under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). If found guilty, they
may be sent to Federal or Military Prisons and upon release may be supervised by
U.S./Federal Probation Officers.

Parole is a controversial political topic in the United States. According to the U.S. Department
of Justice, at least sixteen states have abolished parole entirely, and four more have abolished
parole for certain violent offenders.[6] During elections, politicians whose administrations
parole any large number of prisoners (or, perhaps, one notorious criminal) are typically
attacked by their opponents as being "soft on crime". The US Department of Justice (DOJ)
stated in 2005 that about 45% of parolees completed their sentences successfully, while 38%
were returned to prison, and 11% absconded. These statistics, the DOJ says, are relatively
unchanged since 1995; even so, some states (including New York) have abolished parole
altogether for violent felons, and the federal government abolished it in 1984 for all offenders
convicted of a federal crime, whether violent or not. Despite the decline in jurisdictions with a
functioning parole system, the average annual growth of parolees was an increase of about
1.5% per year between 1995 and 2002.

A variant of parole is known as "time off for good behavior", or, colloquially, "good time".
Unlike the traditional form of parole – which may be granted or denied at the discretion of a
parole board – time off for good behavior is automatic absent a certain number (or gravity) of
infractions committed by a convict while incarcerated (in most jurisdictions the released
inmate is placed under the supervision of a parole officer for a certain amount of time after
being so released). In some cases "good time" can reduce the maximum sentence by as much
as one-third. It is usually not made available to inmates serving life sentences, as there is no
release date that can be moved up.

[edit] US immigration law

Main article: Parole (United States immigration)

In US immigration law, the term parole has three different meanings.

A person who does not meet the technical requirements for a visa may be allowed to enter the
U.S. for humanitarian purposes. Persons who are allowed to enter the U.S. in this manner are
known as parolees.

Another use related to immigration is advance parole, in which a person who already legally
resides in the U.S. needs to leave temporarily and return without a visa. This typically occurs
when a person's application for a green card (permanent residency) is in process and the
person must leave the U.S. for emergency or business reasons. In the wake of September 11,
2001, there has been greater scrutiny of applications for advance parole. [1]

A person who goes out of the country on "advanced parole" has to go through the following
process: Canada by road: US Immigration officers will require you to submit one parole
document to them. They will stamp your passport and another parole document, and issue a
new I-94 form.

The term is also used to denote scenarios in which the federal government orders the release
of an alien inmate incarcerated in a state prison before that inmate's sentence has been
completed, with the stipulation that the inmate be immediately deported, and never permitted
to return to the United States. The most celebrated example of this form of parole was that of
Lucky Luciano, who was being "rewarded" for cooperating with the war effort during World
War II. In most cases where such parole is resorted to, however, the federal government has
deemed that the need for the immediate deportation of the inmate outweighs the state's
interest in meting out punishment for the crime the inmate committed.

[edit] Prisoners of war

Parole is "[t]he agreement of persons who have been taken prisoner by an enemy that they
will not again take up arms against those who captured them, either for a limited time or
during the continuance of the war"[7]. The US Department of Defense defines parole more
broadly. "Parole agreements are promises given the captor by a POW to fulfill stated
conditions, such as not to bear arms or not to escape, in consideration of special privileges,
such as release from captivity or lessened restraint."[8]

The practice of paroling enemy troops began thousands of years ago, at least as early as the
time of Carthage.[9] Hugo Grotius, an early international lawyer, favorably discussed prisoner
of war parole.[10] During the American Civil War, both the Dix-Hill Cartel and the Lieber
Code set out rules regarding prisoner of war parole.[11] Francis Lieber's thoughts on parole
later reappeared in the Declaration of Brussels of 1874, the Hague Convention, and the
Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War.[12]

In the United States, current policy prohibits US soldiers who are prisoners of war from
accepting parole. The C

ode of Conduct for the US Armed Forces states: "I will accept neither parole nor special favours from
the enemy."[13] This position is reiterated by the Department of Defense. "The United States does not
authorise any Military Service member to sign or enter into any such parole agreement." [14]
The National Parole Board is an administrative tribunal making decisions after assessing risk and
public safety under the authority of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act to grant, deny,
revoke parole, or detain offenders subject to Statutory Release. The Board also makes decisions on
pardon requests under the Criminal Records Act. The Board can disclose offender information, copies
of Board decisions to victims, media and the public upon request. Provides public education about
the National Parole Board and the conditional release process. Can be contacted for information on
how to receive a pardon.