In 1990, there were roughly 732,000 inmates in our federal
and state prisons. By 1997, the number had risen
to nearly 1.2 million, plus another half-million in local
and county jails. Despite that massive and expensive increase
in incarceration, the rate of violent crime in the
United States, while declining, remains at several times
the levels of any other advanced industrial society.
Clearly, America has too much crime and too many
prisoners. For both issues, part of the problem, and the
most promising solution, is probation. Instead of being a
real attempt to supervise and help offenders in the community,
probation is now for the most part merely a legal
status that means government can incarcerate them for
future offenses without the fuss and bother of a criminal
trial.
The probation system's inadequacies drives judges
who want to subject criminals to meaningful punishment
to overuse incarceration. Until we learn how to
punish criminals and control their behavior without
paying their room and board, we won't get a handle on
crime, and we will continue to spend millions each year
keeping wrongdoers behind bars.
We need to convert probation (and the smaller parole
system) into a serious means of punishing, monitoring,
controlling, and rehabilitating criminals. The key is to
use frequent drug testing in tandem with new location-monitoring
technologies to keep far closer track of probationers'
and parolees' behavior. In conjunction with
those steps, we should give community corrections officials
authority to impose swift, predictable sanctions on
offenders when they violate the terms of their probation
or parole. If we take these steps, we can reduce crime
and rein in spending on corrections.
There are more convicted criminals in America today
than there are prison cells to hold them. About three-quarters
of the people under criminal justice supervision
aren't behind bars but rather are on parole or probation.
Nevertheless, we continue to spend more on incarceration
than on community corrections. Our prisons hold
only one-quarter of all offenders, yet they get about two-thirds
of the money spent on corrections.
While the parole system -- which handles those being
released from prison early -- is somewhat better-staffed
than probation, even parole caseloads are absurdly high,
and the "truth-in-sentencing" movement has led to a great
reduction in the period of post-release supervision. Probation
caseloads are ludicrous -- hundreds per officer-
and result in only nominal supervision. The primary supervisory
technique -- one-on-one meetings -- is profligate
of officer time and produces little useful information
about compliance with probation conditions. Better monitoring
techniques are the key to making the system work.
We know that probationers and parolees consume approximately
half of all the hard drugs (i.e., methamphetamine,
heroin, and cocaine) sold nationwide and that
criminals on release who use such drugs are far more
likely than others to commit new crimes. Urine tests covering
up to five drugs at a time only cost about $5 per
test, yet probation and parole agencies rarely administer
them to offenders under their supervision. For example,
Los Angeles County averages about one drug test per
probationer per year.
Likewise, existing wireless communications technology
would allow probation and parole agencies to continuously
track the location of the offenders they supervise
to within several yards. Yet few parole and probation offices
use electronic monitoring devices.
Probationers who violate the terms of their release cannot
be punished without a court hearing. Moreover,
punishment is entirely at the discretion of a judge and
therefore is not a sure thing.
Many first-time offenders regard being sentenced to
probation as an effective acquittal. Handing out nominal
punishments to those just beginning their adult criminal
careers encourages them to continue offending.
Most serious crimes are committed by repeat offenders
who cycle through the community corrections system
again and again, both before they go to prison for
the first time and in between subsequent prison terms.
Repeat offenders tend to be reckless and impulsive.
Controlling their behavior depends more on the certainty
of swift punishment than it does on the severity of the
sanctions eventually imposed.
Community corrections officers need to get out from behind
their desks and go to where their clients are, employing
their extraordinary powers of search to monitor
behavior.
The legal foundation for a modernized, more effective
community corrections system is largely in place. By
law, probation and parole officers already possess powers
of search that far exceed those of the police (at least
with respect to probationers). Again by law, community
corrections departments already possess wide discretion
over the terms of probation and parole and have authority
to vary those conditions from client to client and
from time to time.
Abstinence from hard drugs, verified by frequent
drug testing, should be a routine condition of probation
and parole. So too should curfews or other limits on freedom
of movement, verified by electronic position monitoring.
Offenders who comply with these and other
conditions of their release should be rewarded with
fewer drug tests and relaxed restrictions on their movement.
Conversely, punishments should be ratcheted up
for those who continue to break the rules.
Offenders who violate the terms of their release
should be subjected to unambiguous, formula-based
sanctions, with punishment meted out swiftly by community
corrections officers. For example, states could
pass laws authorizing probation and parole officers or
their supervisors to impose sanctions that would be subject
to judicial review. Alternatively, states could begin to
assign "on call" judges to probation offices.
Probationers and parolees whose reading and writing
skills limit their job prospects also should be required to
attend literacy programs. States also should create direct
data links between community corrections offices and
adult-education centers, drug rehabilitation clinics, job-training
offices, and the like. With such links in place,
probation and parole officers could determine instantly
whether the criminals they are supervising are complying
with release conditions involving such agencies.
If we are going to make parole and probation offices our
front-line crime-control agencies, we'll need far more
community corrections officers. These officers will need
better training and vastly expanded access to information
technology. In some cases, they will need to be armed.
Pay and working conditions will have to be adjusted to
reflect their heightened role in ensuring that probationers
and parolees stop committing crimes, don't use drugs,
and accept family and workplace responsibilities.
Elected officials and opinion-makers need to put community
corrections on the political agenda. If they do,
they could create a climate in which community correc-
tions gets the resources and the responsibility it needs to
become as important an element as the police in the
struggle to control crime and preserve liberty.
