Boulders on the Hill: Reforming Community Supervision

Criminal justice policy discussions often center on a few hot-button topics, such as the mental health and substance abuse crises, disparities in incarceration, and juvenile crime. Comparatively, the barriers that trap individuals in our country’s parole and probation systems (collectively referred to as “community supervision”) get less attention but are just as important. Approximately 3.8 million people were under community supervision at the end of 2023. For these individuals, parole and probation represents a minefield of potential pitfalls, with a variety of supervision failures and technical violations threatening to reincarcerate them. This complex web of requirements is fiscally wasteful and does little to promote public safety. Despite some promising trends in the right direction, America’s community supervision system still needs reform.

Parole and probation serve two distinct purposes and groups of people. Probation is generally for low-risk offenders serving all or a portion of their sentence in their communities, while parole is usually granted after someone has served part of a prison sentence and been deemed low-enough risk to be allowed back into the community. Both kinds of supervision impose a number of requirements on supervisees, including regular school attendance and employment, drug and alcohol tests, periodic check-ins, travel restrictions, and of course, refraining from new criminal activity. Individuals under supervision may also be subject to special requirements, such as no-contact orders with victims, house arrest, psychiatric treatment, electronic monitoring, or other conditions contingent upon the type and severity of the crimes committed as well as to ensure safe reentry into society. While some of these requirements can be justified, other rules include technical violations that serve little public safety function—such as failing to report to the supervisory officer, skipping a treatment session, or failure to remain within state lines. These demands tend to affect those who lack the financial means or support networks to comply accordingly.

As originally conceived, community supervision was a means to reduce prison and jail populations, lessen the associated costs, and rehabilitate offenders. Nevertheless, it is unclear whether imposing this laundry list of compliance requirements has actually reduced incarcerated populations. Indeed, onerous compliance burdens result in many people being sent back to prison for technical violations that do not involve new criminal activity. Of the 200,000 people jailed for supervision failures in 2023, over half were readmitted for technical violations. That same year, individuals incarcerated for supervision violations constituted 20 percent of the total U.S. prison population and 40 percent of all prison admissions.

Cases should be analyzed more meticulously, as a one-size-fits-all approach of sending people back to prison for non-criminal violations does little to improve public safety. The community supervision status quo is a hindrance because the stringent rules placed on these individuals can limit their ability to obtain proper housing and employment to help provide stability in their lives versus resorting back to any type of criminal activity—most often survival crime. Shorter community supervision terms allow for better targeting of resources toward individuals who actually pose a risk to the community instead of those being penalized for low-level infractions. Studies have also shown that people are more likely to reoffend in the first few months after release and are less likely to recidivate after an initial set period.

The current community supervision system also imposes a significant cost on taxpayers. According to the Council of State Governments (CSG) Justice Center, arrests of supervisees for new criminal activity constituted less than 2 percent of all arrests made in 2023. Despite the marginal benefits to public safety, states spent an estimated $10 billion jailing community supervision violators that year, with over $3 billion spent on jailing individuals for technical violations. In this latter category, the states that spent the most are Wisconsin ($372 million), California ($216 million), Pennsylvania ($147 million), Florida ($146 million), and Louisiana ($116 million). Given the growing fiscal uncertainty created by federal policy changes, the added financial burden of incarcerating individuals for minor compliance failures is one that many states can ill afford.

Flaws in our community supervision system have led several states to try reducing the number of supervision violations. Since 2018, three states have stood out in this reform effort: Georgia, Missouri, and Oklahoma. Between 2018 and 2023, Georgia saw a 44 percent decrease in prison admissions for supervision violations after a series of reforms including virtual check-ins with supervisory officers. In Missouri, admissions related to technical violations declined by 45 percent after implementing the Ohio Risk Assessment System, which helps tailor case-management services to the particular needs and circumstances of the supervisee. Oklahoma has had perhaps the most dramatic reduction in prison admissions for supervision violations, with a combined 59 percent reduction from 2018 to 2023. This reduction stemmed from the passage of ballot measure SQ 780, which redefined simple drug possession and low-level property crimes from felonies to misdemeanors, allowing these individuals to serve their sentences under probation rather than in jail. 

Not all of the data is headed in the right direction. According to the CSG, 34 states have seen their total admissions increase since their low point in 2021. As the number of people at risk of being ensnared in the “community supervision trap” trends upward, states should consider implementing new policies aimed at alleviating these risks, such as limiting incarceration as punishment for technical violations or capping the length of probation sentences. Prohibiting driver’s license suspensions for failure to pay fees would help reduce the number of people failing to comply with the terms of their supervision (e.g., maintaining employment). Such a change would help reduce the regressive nature of community supervision, as the fees and fines associated with the legal process tend to be borne by poor people. Overall, these reforms would help reduce the burden of community supervision on offenders while allowing public safety officials to reallocate resources toward higher-risk individuals.

The criminal justice system works best when it deters crime, rehabilitates offenders, and enhances public safety. A complex web of rules, technicalities, and fines that ensnare people in a revolving door of punishment and release under the guise of “community supervision” do not serve these purposes. Shorter and more focused supervision terms can better address high risk to community safety during this critical initial period of release, and more jurisdictions should look into how this reform can help their communities. The time has come for a system that actually helps people succeed instead of setting them up to fail.