WASHINGTON, D.C., November 5, 2002—The number of parole violators returned to state prisons exploded from 27,000 in 1980 to 203,000 in 2000, a 652 percent increase, according to a new analysis of U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) data by the nonpartisan Urban Institute.
The 2000 figure surpasses 1980's total prison admissions of 169,000, say Jeremy Travis and Sarah Lawrence, researchers from the Urban Institute's Justice Policy Center. Parole violators, they note, made up 35 percent of prison admissions in 1999, double 1980's 17 percent.
"Beyond the Prison Gates: The State of Parole in America" uses the latest BJS figures to document the declining role of parole boards in deciding whether prisoners are released, the increasing reliance on parole supervision, and the unprecedented growth in parole revocations leading to returns to prison. With 1,600 people leaving prison every day and $100 million in federal funds available to states for designing new strategies to help prisoners returning home, the report is an especially timely inquiry into how parole is operating across the nation.
"There is a certain irony" in parole's evolution, Travis and Lawrence observe. "One function of parole boards is to ensure that a prisoner is ready for release with a place to stay, a solid job prospect, the support of family and friends. Most prisoners never see a parole board and never get a plan that can be monitored by a parole officer. We are losing the link between pre-release preparation and post-release supervision, a link the classic parole model was intended to create."
Parole Boards and Prison Releases
Between 1980 and 2000, state prison releases grew from 144,000 to 571,000. A quarter-century ago two-thirds of releases were decided by a parole board; today the figure is about one-quarter.
"One of the fundamental criminal justice questions is whether to grant an inmate liberty," the researchers say. "Release decisions mandated by statute, reflecting judgments of the legislative branch, have largely replaced the exercise of discretion by the executive branch's parole boards."
The statistics mask vast state-level variation. In Florida, Pennsylvania, and Washington, for instance, more than 95 percent of those entering parole in 1998 were the result of a parole board decision. In California, Illinois, and New Hampshire, it was less than one percent.
Back into the Community
After prison, most offenders are required to serve a period of community supervision, commonly known as parole. While the number of individuals unconditionally released from state prisons jumped from about 20,000 in 1980 to 102,000 in 1998, states increasingly rely on parole supervision as part of a criminal sentence. Between 1960 and 1990, conditional releases' share of all releases grew from 56 percent to a high of 87 percent, before declining to 82 percent in 1999.
More and more state prisoners are back in society as conditional releases. In 1980 all those under supervision totaled 220,000; by 2000 this group had more than tripled to 726,000. Five states-California, Texas, Pennsylvania, New York, and Illinois-accounted for 62 percent of parolees at the end of 2000, but only 35 percent of the U.S. population.
Parole Outcomes
Using the BJS definition of parole success (completing the term of supervision without returning to prison, returning to jail, or absconding from supervision), the success rate in the 1990s was relatively stable, ranging from 42 to 49 percent of all parole discharges. Success in 1999 went from 19 percent of discharged parolees in Utah to 83 percent in Massachusetts.
Florida, Mississippi, Indiana, West Virginia, and Alabama admitted less than 10 percent of their prisoners as parole violators in 1999. By contrast, more than half of the admissions in Montana, Louisiana, and Utah were parole violators. California topped the list at 67 percent.
"It's unlikely parolees in one state are inherently different from those in another," say the authors. "More likely, the policies of parole agencies, such as using technical violations to return someone to prison, contribute significantly to these disparities."
The California Component
California skews many of the national parole measures. California placed 98 percent of its released prisoners on parole in 1998, compared to 82 percent nationally. It had the largest parole population in 2000: 118,000, representing 18 percent of the national total. California accounted for a remarkably large share of all parole violators returned to prison, 42 percent of the national total in 1998, or almost 90,000 returnees. The state's parole success rate in 1999 was 21 percent.
Looming Issues
"When it comes to defining parole, states are engaged in a wide variety of experiments in criminal justice policy," Travis and Lawrence state. "These experiments raise many questions that remain unanswered because they have not been subjected to rigorous evaluations."
Does, for example, the use of parole boards to make release decisions result in lower recidivism rates? Does placing large percentages of prisoners on supervision reduce crime and promote successful reintegration? Is a revocation policy that sends relatively few parolees back to prison more cost effective than one involving thousands?
"Beyond the Prison Gates: The State of Parole in America," by Jeremy Travis and Sarah Lawrence, was funded by a grant from the Open Society Institute. More justice policy research from the Urban Institute can be accessed at http://urban.org/r/crime.cfm. The Urban Institute is a nonprofit, nonpartisan policy research and educational organization that examines the social, economic, and governance challenges facing the nation.
