The Benefits Of Parole And Its Effect On Society

Each country across the globe has its unique ways to deal with criminals. Most of their criminal justice systems include some form of parole for individuals who have completed their sentences, in order to maintain some form of control over them while they readjust to life outside prison. This article will discuss the overall parole system in the United States and those of Australia and Canada. The Australian and Canadian parole systems will be compared to that of the United States and their effectiveness will be discussed. The information

After abolition of capital punishment in Australia, the imprisonment is considered as severe penalty. Life imprisonment is imposed mostly in cases of murders after considering the severity and circumstances of crime. Prisoners are to serve long period of their lives in jail with no hope or less hope to be released. The term life imprisonment changes jurisdiction to jurisdiction or state to state, as it can be sentence until death, twenty years or indeterminate period. The uncertainty here becomes more cruel. A few dies in prison committing suicide or natural death in prisons due to stressful and unnatural environment of prison. A long term isolation also changes attitude and behaviour in such a way that these prisoners become incapable to survive in normal society. Offenders who serve long time in prisons are also discriminated in our society whether in relation to social activities in community or employment matters. In Australia aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders are victims of such discrimination and it can be the reason behind their growing population in Australian prisons. Thus life time sentencing has become an inhumane penalty and subject of important consideration at international level. Even harsh conditions results in higher rates of

“The Prison and Probation Service has two main goals: To contribute to the reduction of criminality, and to work to increase safety in society. To achieve these goals we work with sentenced persons in order to improve their possibilities of living a life without committing new crimes.” (Linstrom and Leijonram)

First off, parole is “the conditional release of a prisoner, prior to completition of the

In various cases, many individuals whom were convicted of crime are released on parole. The parole system was instated for those who were well-behaved prisoners and have demonstrated their

Both jail and prison offer some type of early released programs, in this case probation and parole will briefly be discussed. Probation is a prison sentence that is suspended on the condition that the offender follow certain prescribed rules and commit no further crime (Seiter, 2008). Parole is similar to probation except that it is after a period of incarceration, which involved determinate and indeterminate sentencing (Seiter, 2008). The other types of prison sentencing include mandatory minimums, three-strike laws, and truth-in-sentencing (Wilson, 2001). The only difference is that a parole board allows convicts to serve the remainder of their term in society under supervision and strict limitations (Wilson, 2001). In summary both jails and prisons should strive to provide as much educational, health, and counseling opportunities as possible to reduce the likelihood of recidivism. Second, funding for the jail and prison systems will be briefly discussed.

While some critics regard parole as an early release option that puts the public at unnecessary risk, there are others that argue that parole allows the re-integration of offenders into the community and provides better prospects for their rehabilitation. There are however, several questions that need to be answered in order to figure out which of these two arguments makes more sense. This includes, how is parole defined and described in the academic field? What are the pros and cons of using parole as an early release option? How do we determine if parole is over or under-used in Australia?

In addition, to rehab programs and policies which help young offenders to escape incarceration, probation and even parole. Many states have made it more difficult to be placed on probation for certain offenses and impossible for certain serious ones. Parole, which is the conditional early release from prison under supervision in the community, has also been restricted in many states. So in theory, a return to determinacy and the abandonment of rehab eliminates the need for parole, which was designed to help the offender prepare to reenter the community.

Kleiman and Hawken suggest that a reform of the parole system can lead to a more effective system overall. They draw attention to the fact that despite crime rates being on a continuous decline, incarceration rates continue to rise at an alarming rate. The identify that about 1% of adults in the United States is behind bars, and they argue that an effective parole system could counter this, allowing many of this immense prison population to be contributing members to society. They go on to discuss how prisoners are being rushed out of prison, because they need to make room for more prisoners to come in. As these prisoners are released, the integration process proves to be a complicated one, almost guaranteeing failure of these newly released prisoners. They point out

They have to fill out and sign an application the happens to be furnished by a case manager. If the criminal does not complete the application then the offender is provided the waiver to the application. After that, the caseworker the will notify the criminal when his parole hearing is to take place. The parole hearing is an opportunity for the criminal to present their case and why they think they should be able to receive parole. The commission determines if the person is eligible for parole according to the type of sentence the criminal recieve when he was convicted. The earliest time the criminal can be parole is called the parole eligibility date. If the criminal is granted parole they must wait to be released until on or after the parole eligibility date (Frequently Asked Questions). If granted parole the parolee will then be recieve back into the community. Only 15 states do not use the parole system today while the rest of the 35 states do. The first state to use the parole system was New York. “In 1910 Congress established the U.S. Parole Commission and gave it the responsibility of evaluating and setting the release dates for federal prisoners”( Parole). Also those of a very serious crime must complete eighty-five percent of their original sentence before they can be released from prison and sent back into the real world.

Society holds expectations for its citizens, and non-citizens at a very high level. They expect everyone to abide by the law, and give back to the community. In a perfect world all citizens and non-citizens would be good Samaritans, sadly it is far from that in today’s society. Many individuals are deviant and stray from society’s expectations of them. We know them as criminals. Indeed some of them may be hardened criminals, yet some of them commit petty crimes that are still a burden on society. Whether, their crime is petty or severe, society expects them to pay for their actions. Most criminals at one time or another will spend time in prison or jail.

This belief indicated that if offenders could not be rehabilitated then they should be punished and it was time to get tough on crime. Within a relatively short time parole was attacked and the individual approach of indeterminate sentencing, or release by the authority of a parole board was abolished in 16 states (Rhine, Smith, and Jackson, 1991) and some form of determinate sentencing was adopted in all 50 states (Mackenzie, 2000)].

What is Parole and its` purpose? Parole is a method of releasing offenders from prison prior to the expiration of their sentence. Inmates are screened for their suitability for release based upon the risk they pose to the public. Once

The typical parole practices that are used in today’s correctional system are supervision and rules for releases. When it comes down to it according to provisions of a statute (mandatory release/mandatory parole), there are many types of post-custody conditional supervision, or in other words the result of a sentence to a term of supervised release. (“Bureau of justice statistics (BJS) - community corrections (probation and parole),” 2016) “In the federal system, a term of supervised release is a sentence to a fixed period of supervision in the community that follows a sentence to a period of incarceration in federal prison, both of which are ordered at the time of

Parole was first put into place in the early part of the 20th century as a means of cutting incarceration costs. To put it simply, it costs less to supervise a person in the community than it does to pay for the cost of imprisonment. The savings is also apparent in the community in which the paroled offender is supervised. Many parolees must take part in community service which costs the community less than contracting for the same services (i.e., litter abatement, highway grass maintenance, etc.). Effective parole can lead to successful rehabilitation for the offender (American Probation and Parole Association,