Parole and Probation

Parole and Probation

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Probation takes place before or instead of jail time while parole is when one is released early from prison. In both of these situations, the offender is under round the clock supervision and is expected to follow certain rules and regulations.

Parole and probation are an effective means of implementing justice than prison time.  A study carried out in Texas, found out that it costs an average of 3.4 dollars on supervising individuals on parole or probation while it costs an average of 79 dollars to keep an inmate in prison.  For instance, in California, a 300 million dollars deficit on expenditure caused by the rising costs of running prisons resulted in cutting costs of health care and public education to take care of the debt (California Board of Corrections, 2013). The parole and probation policy in California has helped the state deal with this problem and save the taxpayers. The individuals are allowed to work and therefore participate in paying taxes and, the state does not have to pay welfare payments made to prisoners.

The process of probation and parole has had its fair share of difficulties mainly because of population growth.  As the population grows so is the number of offenders and so is the caseload for supervising officers while the workload does not change. According to Bonzer and Glazen (2013), this has created challenges for parole agencies in making workload and caseload decisions.  It is very critical to consider the implications of caseload, which is the number of individuals supervised by an officer and workload, which is the total amount of time an officer takes to complete certain tasks. As a result, there is no enough time allocated per offender. A case in Lincoln County that can clearly illustrate this problem is that of Jason Herr who in 2013, was serving probation for 4 years for a felony drug charge.  In the course of the probation he tested positive for methamphetamine several times and never followed the regulations. He even failed to show up for drug tests thirteen times. This can be related to caseload and workload issues where a single officer has too many people to supervise on a certain period of time.

The policy makers have implemented working policies regarding probation and parole thereby reducing the number of inmates thus saving the taxpayers, reducing the number of imprisoned Americans as well as ensuring safety to communities.  I would recommend implementation of more effective measures for parole and probation programs such as GPS-satellite tracking supervision for the program to be more successful. I would also recommend the recruitment of more parole officers due to the rising populations of offenders.