Product Code Database
Parole, also known as provisional release, supervised release, or being on paper, is a form of early release of a prisoner where the prisoner agrees to abide by behavioral conditions, including checking-in with their designated , or else they may be rearrested and returned to prison. interviews a drug-related offense probationer]]
Originating from the French word parole ('speech, spoken words' but also 'promise'), the term became associated during the Middle Ages with the release of prisoners who gave their word. This differs greatly from pardon, 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. It is similar to probation, the key difference being that parole takes place after a prison sentence, while probation can be granted in lieu of a prison sentence.
In an instance of multiple discovery, in 1846, Arnould Bonneville de Marsangy proposed the idea of parole (which he termed "preparatory liberations") to the Civil Tribunal at Reims.
Any prisoner whose sentence is less than two years is sent to a correctional facility in the province or territory where they were convicted, whilst anyone sentenced to serve no less than two years will be sent to a federal correctional facility and will thus have to deal with the Parole Board of Canada.
Parole is an option for most prisoners. However, parole is not guaranteed, particularly for prisoners serving life or indeterminate sentences. In cases of first-degree murder, one can apply for parole after 25 years if convicted of a single murder. However, if convicted of multiple murders, either of the first or second-degree, the sentencing judge previously had the discretion to make parole ineligibility periods consecutive – thereby extending parole ineligibility beyond 25 years and, in rare cases, beyond a normal life-span. On May 27, 2022, the Supreme Court of Canada unanimously ruled that extending parole ineligibility beyond the statutorily mandated 25 years was unconstitutional for being "cruel and unusual" punishment.
The Chinese legal code has no explicit provision for exile, but often dissidents are 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.
The conditions of release are called a licence, and parole is called release on licence. There are seven standard licence conditions for all prisoners:
When a prisoner does not have to have their release approved by the Parole Board, further "additional licence conditions" may be suggested by the Probation Service and set by prison governors. When the Parole Board is involved, the Probation Service may suggest additional conditions, but the Parole Board is responsible for determining which additional conditions will be added to the licence. If an offender breaks any of these conditions, they can be "recalled" or returned to prison. Data reported by the Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood in May 2025 showed that recall numbers have grown significantly in recent years. The figures she quoted showed that:
From 2014 many of the probation and license monitoring functions were Outsourcing to private-sector "community rehabilitation companies" (CRCs) as well as the National Probation Service. In May 2019 the government announced that supervision of offenders, including supervision of offenders released on licence, would be re-nationalised. The decision was made following multiple criticisms of the system which led Chief probation inspector Dame Glenys Stacey to describe the system as "irredeemably flawed".
On the federal level, Congress abolished parole in the Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984 (Pub. L. No. 98-473 § 218(a)(5), 98 Stat. 1837, 2027 repealing). Federal prisoners may, however, earn a maximum of 54 days good time credit per year against their sentence (18 U.S.C.A. § 3624(b)). At the time of sentencing, the federal judge may also specify a post-imprisonment period of supervised release. The U.S. Parole Commission still has jurisdiction over parole for those prisoners convicted of felonies in the District of Columbia and who are serving their sentences there, as well as over certain federally incarcerated military and international prisoners.
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). Depending upon the jurisdiction, the parole board may look at various factors such as the inmate's criminal history, participation in rehabilitation, education, or vocational programs, expressions of remorse, admissions of guilt, and insight (in the psychiatric sense) into the factors driving the inmate's decision to commit the crimes at issue (in order to estimate the likelihood that the inmate may reoffend upon encountering similar factors in the outside world after release). Many states now permit sentences of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole (such as for murder and espionage), but any prisoner not sentenced to such sentences or the death penalty will eventually have the right to petition for release (one state 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 examination. If parole is granted, 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 , refraining from illicit drug use and, sometimes, abstaining from alcohol, attending addiction treatment or counseling, and having no contact with their victim). The inmate gives an address which is verified by parole officers as valid before the inmate is released to parole supervision.
Upon release, the parolee goes to a parole office and is assigned a parole officer. Parole officers make unannounced visits to parolees' houses or apartments to check on them. During these home visits officers look for signs of drug or alcohol use, guns or illegal weapons, and other illegal activities. Should parolees start to use drugs or alcohol, they are told to go to drug or alcohol counseling and Narcotics Anonymous or Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. Should they not comply with conditions on the parole certificate (including abstention from voting) 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 prison or military prisons and upon release may be supervised by U.S. Federal Probation officers.
Parole in the United States has proven to be politically divisive. Beginning from the initiation of the war on drugs in the 1970s, politicians began to advertise their "tough on crime" stances, encouraging a tightening of penal policy and resulting in longer sentences for what were previously referred to as minor drug violations. 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". According to the U.S. Department of Justice, at least sixteen states have removed the option of parole entirely, and four more have abolished parole for certain violent offenders. However, during the rise of mass incarceration in the 1970s, the states that continued to use parole and indeterminate sentencing contributed more to rising incarceration rates than those without parole boards. Said states implemented a dramatic decrease of parole releases, which inevitably resulted in longer sentences for more prisoners. From 1980 to 2009, indeterminate sentencing states made up nine of the ten states with the highest incarceration rate.
Starting in the 1980s, parole was revisited as a method once again to manage prison populations and as financial motivation to prevent further budget straining. The new approach to parole release was accompanied with the growth of a mass surveillance state. The supervision practices of increased drug testing, intensive supervision, unannounced visits and home confinement are widely used today. Additionally, a growing condition of parole was to assume the role of informant towards frequently surveilled communities.
The Great Recession of 2008 coupled with the Twin Towers attack on September 11, 2001 contributed to the public emphasis on the war on terror and eventually led to a trend of lowering incarceration. In fact, presidential politics between 2001 and 2012 were, for the first time in ten years, not focused on domestic crime control and even saw the promotion of the Second Chance Act by George W. Bush, who used the act to pledge federal money for reentry as a symbol of his "compassionate conservatism".
Parole boards are seen as lacking in efficient qualifications and too politicized in the appointment process. The decision for granting parole has been criticized for neglecting the due process of prisoners on a case-by-case basis. Additionally, the process for being granted a commutation has been criticized, as many prisoners have been denied a commutation for not showing the right amount of "remorse" or proving substantially that they were ready to contribute again, which are aspects that many argue are too normative and subjective.
Most agree that, as was originally intended, the parole system puts a necessary focus on rehabilitation, despite its current problems which are widely debated. Critics note that it is becoming more and more expensive to the taxpayer, with little evidence of successful rehabilitation for prisoners. The conditions of parole themselves are often attacked as well, critiqued for being overwhelmingly criminogenic and perpetuating mass surveillance and a permanent state of imprisonment that does little to ensure a smooth reentry into society. Critics note that greater discretion is required to decide which parolees require costly supervisory resources and which ones do not, rather than placing digital, physical, and structural restrictions on every parolee.
The U.S. 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 1.6% 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 parolewhich may be granted or denied at the discretion of a parole boardtime 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 original sentence by as much as one-half. It is usually not made available to inmates serving life sentences, as there is no release date that can be moved up.
The practice of paroling enemy troops began thousands of years ago, at least as early as the time of Carthage.Herbert C. Fooks, Prisoners of War 297 (1924). Parole allowed the prisoners' captors to avoid the burdens of having to feed and care for them while still avoiding having the prisoners rejoin their old ranks once released; it could also allow the captors to recover their own men in a prisoner exchange. Hugo Grotius, an early international lawyer, favorably discussed prisoner of war parole.Hugo Grotius, De Jure Belli ac Pacis (1625), reprinted in 2 Classics of International Law 853-54 (J. Scott ed. 1925). During the American Civil War, both the Dix–Hill Cartel and the Lieber Code set out rules regarding prisoner of war parole.James M. McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom 791 (1988); U.S. Army General Orders No. 100 (24 April 1863), reprinted in R. S. Hartigan, Lieber's Code and the Law of War 45–71 (1983). 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.Annex to Hague Convention IV Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land, Art. 10 (1907) and Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, Art. 21 (1949), both reprinted in Documents on the Laws of War 216 (A. Roberts & R. Guelff (ed.), 1982).
In the United States, current policy prohibits US military personnel who are prisoners of war from accepting parole. The Code of the United States Fighting Force states: "I will accept neither parole nor special favors from the enemy."Code of Conduct for Members of the Armed Forces of the United States, Exec. Order No. 10,631, 20 Fed. Reg. 6057, 3 C.F.R. 1954–58 Comp. 266 (1955), as amended by Exec. Order No. 12,017, 42 Fed. Reg. 57941 (1977); and Exec. Order No. 12,633, 53 Fed. Reg. 10355 (1988). The position is reiterated by the Department of Defense. "The United States does not authorize any Military Service member to sign or enter into any such parole agreement."DoD Directive 1300.7, Enclosure 2, Para. B3a(5).
|
|
