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65 Fed. Probation 3 (2000-2001)
When Prisoners Return to Communities: Political, Economic, and Social Consequences

handle is hein.journals/fedpro65 and id is 5 raw text is: Juneu ites 2001ial 3cn m c an Soia Conequnce Joan Petersilia, Ph.D. University of California, Irvine I N 1999, STATE prisons admitted about 591,000 prisoners and released almost the same number-about 538,000. If federal pris- oners and those released from secure juvenile facilities are included, nearly 600,000 inmates arrive on the doorsteps of communities throughout the country each year. Virtually no systematic, comprehensive at- tention has been paid by policymakers to deal- ing with people after they are released, an issue that has been termed prisoner reentry. Fail- ure to do so may well backfire, and the crime reduction gains made in recent years erode, unless we consider the cumulative impact of tens of thousands of returning felons on families, children, and communities. In particular, fail- ure to pay attention to parole services is unfor- tunate, since most inmates, at the point of release, have an initial strong desire to succeed. Of course, inmates have always been re- leased from prison, and officials have long struggled with how to help them succeed. But the current situation is different. The numbers dwarf anything in our history, the needs of parolees are more serious, and the corrections system retains few rehabilitation programs. A number of unfortunate collateral conse- quences are likely, including increases in child abuse, family violence, the spread of infectious diseases, homelessness, and community disor- ganization. And with 1.3 million prisoners, many more people have real-life knowledge of the prison experience. Being incarcerated is becoming almost a normal experience for people in some communities. This phenom- enon may affect the socialization of young people, the ability of prison sentences to scare and deter, and the future trajectory of crime rates and crime victimization. Parole in the U.S.- Managing More People, Managing Them Less Well Changes in sentencing practices, coupled with a decrease in availability of rehabilitation pro- grams, have placed new demands on the parole system. Support and funding have declined, re- sulting in dangerously high caseloads. Parolees sometimes abscond from supervision, often without consequence. Not surprisingly, most parolees fail to lead law-abiding lives and are rearrested. Determinate Sentencing Means Automatic Release Parole in the United States has changed dra- matically since the mid-1970s, when most inmates served open-ended indeterminate prison terms-10 years to life, for example- and a parole board, usually appointed by the governor, had wide discretion to release in- mates or keep them behind bars. In principle, offenders were paroled only if they were re- habilitated and had ties to the community- such as a family or a job. This made release from prison a privilege to be earned. If in- mates violated parole, they could be returned to prison to serve the balance of their term- a strong incentive not to commit crimes. Today, indeterminate sentencing and dis- cretionary release have been replaced in 14 states with determinate sentencing and auto- matic release (Tonry 1999). Offenders receive fixed terms at the time of their initial sentenc- ing and are automatically released at the end of their prison term, usually with credits for good time. For example, in California, where more than 125,000 prisoners are released each year, no parole board asks whether the inmate is ready for release, since he or she must be released once the prisoner has served the de- terminate term imposed by the court. Most California offenders are then subject to a one- year term of parole supervision. A parolee must generally be released to the county where he last resided before going to prison. Since offenders overwhelmingly come from poor, culturally isolated, inner-city neighborhoods, that is where they return. Indeterminate sentencing was abolished because of its discretionary quality. Studies showed that wide disparities resulted when the characteristics of the crime and the offender were taken into account, and were influenced by the offender's race, socioeconomic charac- teristics, and place of conviction. But most corrections officials believe that some ability to individualize is necessary, since it provides a way to take account of changes in behavior that occur after the offender was incarcerated. Im- prisonment can cause psychological break- down, depression, or mental illness, or reveal previously unrecognized personal problems, and the parole board can adjust release dates accordingly. Most Parolees Have Unmet Needs State and federal incarceration rates qua- drupled between 1980-1996, and the U.S. prison population now exceeds 1.3 million persons. Sentences for drug offending are the major reason for increases in admissions- accounting for approximately 45 percent of the growth. Aggravated assault and sexual assault are also major contributors to growth (Blumstein and Beck, 1999). State and federal government have allo- cated increasing shares of their budgets to

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