A probation explosion keeps too many chained
We often talk about solving mass incarceration by sending fewer people to jail pre-trial and fewer to prison post-conviction. But there’s another dimension of the problem we ignore at our peril: the nearly four-fold growth in probation and parole since 1980.
Founded in the 1800s as alternatives to incarceration, probation and parole — together referred to as community corrections — now work to unnecessarily deprive thousands of people’s liberty in their own right, as well as being a common tripwire to incarceration.
That’s why the nation’s leading community corrections officials believe we must start taking bold steps to cut the probation and parole population in half and use the savings to provide supportive programming for those who need it most.
In a new report out today from Columbia University, 20 probation and parole administrators including myself argue that “community corrections in America has grown far beyond what its founders could have imagined with a profound, unintended impact on incarceration.”
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