By Lucius Couloute
The U.S. operates one of the largest and most punitive criminal justice systems in the world. On any given day, 1.9 million people are incarcerated in more than 6,000 federal, state and local facilities. Another 3.7 million remain under what scholars call “correctional control” through probation or parole supervision.
That means one out of every 60 Americans is entangled in the system — one of the highest rates globally.
Yet despite its vast reach, the criminal justice system often fails at its most basic goal: preventing people from being rearrested, reconvicted or reincarcerated. Criminal justice experts call this “recidivism.” About 68% of people who leave prison in any given year are rearrested within three years, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
It’s certainly easy to blame individuals for getting rearrested or reincarcerated. But if you take a closer look at life after release – which often includes employment discrimination, housing barriers and exclusion from basic social services – recidivism seems less like a personal failure, I would argue, and more the workings of a broken system.
As a sociologist, I know that people are rarely given a “second chance” after conviction. Instead, they must navigate a web of legally imposed restrictions. Roughly 19 million people in the U.S. have a felony record, subjecting them to thousands of “collateral consequences,” in the words of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. These restrictions dictate everything from what jobs they can take to where they can live.
I’ve recently undertaken research to understand the scale of this issue, aided by my former undergraduate student Skylar Hathorn, who is set to begin a master’s degree in the fall. What we found was sobering. As sociologist Reuben Miller and historian Amanda Alexander have put it, people convicted of felonies are transformed into “carceral citizens.”
Why probation and parole are part of the problem
Probation is community supervision, typically imposed by courts as an alternative to incarceration, and parole is a type of prison release under community supervision. While community supervision was originally designed to help those convicted of crimes reintegrate into society – through mentorship, supportive services and other resources – today, in my view, it largely functions as a punitive surveillance system.
Instead of helping people reintegrate, the system enforces rules – such as forbidding contact with friends or family members who have criminal records – which create new challenges for people trying to rebuild their lives after prison. As one individual from my recent study on reentry put it, “That shit ain’t helping nobody.”
On average, people under community supervision must comply with 10 to 20 conditions, such as mandatory drug tests, regular check-ins with supervising officers, or curfews. These requirements are typically set at the state, county or city level, and can be supplemented with “discretionary” or “special” conditions imposed by court or parole officials.
But while community supervision is supposed to encourage reintegration and personal responsibility, its conditions are often unrealistic, creating hidden traps rather than pathways to success.
For example, imagine you’re lucky enough to find a decent job despite having a criminal record – but your probation officer schedules weekly meetings during your work hours. Do you skip work and risk losing your job? Or miss the meeting and risk a violation? Research shows that this dilemma is common. In one study of almost 4,000 people on probation, 55% missed at least one meeting with their parole officer, increasing their risk of reincarceration.
What if you aren’t able to find a job or can’t afford to pay the supervision fees charged each month? Does contact with a family member who happens to have a criminal record defy a condition of your supervision? Will a speeding ticket land you in jail, since you aren’t supposed to have any contact with law enforcement? What happens if you struggle with addiction and fail a drug test? Or what if you forget to charge your electronic ankle monitor — will your parole officer suspect foul play?
Depending on the conditions of your release, all of these seemingly minor snags could land you back behind bars. That’s why some scholars describe this system as a “parole- and probation-to-prison pipeline.” According to recent estimates, 35% to 40% of yearly prison admissions are of people who were on community supervision at their time of rearrest. In some states, over half of all prison entries are of people on either parole or probation.
State-level success stories – and failures
Importantly, if you’re on probation or parole, your chances of being sent back to prison are very different depending on where you live. You can see just how different by visiting the Justice Outcomes Explorer, a new data dashboard created by the Criminal Justice Administrative Records System. For example, among Idahoans who began a term of probation in 2018, roughly 16.6% were sent to prison within a year. Among Minnesotans, it was just 1.6%.
According to the Justice Outcomes Explorer, parole outcomes are even worse, though yet again they vary by state. Among those released on parole in 2018 from Utah prisons, roughly 51.6% were reincarcerated within a year. In California, that number was less than 7%. Although some variation may come from differences in data collection, much of it reflects policy choices.
As sociologist Michelle Phelps explains, supervision may act as “an off-ramp for some and a conveyor belt toward prison for others.”
Part of the problem is that probation and parole offices vary considerably. For instance, some states cap how long someone may remain on parole, while others allow parole boards to extend that time indefinitely. This creates a system where, in effect, parole boards operate as resentencing entities. Differences in supervision fees, restrictions on associating with others, and the use of electronic monitoring also vary by state.
Research suggests that Americans under community supervision must comply with many more conditions than they did just a few decades ago, which raises the question: Does any of this work?
While some studies suggest that contemporary forms of supervision may reduce reincarceration, recent analyses call this into question.
For example, one study compared people who were randomly placed under intensive probation supervision — requiring more office check-ins, home visits and drug tests — with those under traditional supervision. Researchers found that while both groups committed new crimes at the same rate, those under intensive supervision received technical violations – such as failing a drug test or not following curfew – more often, and were incarcerated more.
In another rigorous study out of Kansas, using what researchers call a “natural experiment,” legal scholar Ryan Sakoda found that post-release supervision significantly increased reincarceration rates. This suggests that community supervision keeps people trapped in the system, rather than helping them escape it.
In fact, according to estimates from the Council of State Governments, almost one-quarter of all prison admissions are due to technical violations of supervision, not new crimes. And even progressive states can enforce technical rules rigidly. For instance, Massachusetts sends a relatively small number of people back to prison or jail while they are on parole. But after retrieving data from a public records request, Skylar and I found that between 2020 and 2022, roughly 80% of all parole revocations were due to technical violations.
That said, the overall number of people admitted to U.S. prisons for technical violations has fallen significantly over the past few years. In 2018, roughly 133,000 people were admitted to prison for technical violations. By 2021, that number was around 89,000 – a decrease of about 33%.
Rethinking community supervision
Historically, community supervision wasn’t intended to be a form of punishment — it’s supposed to help individuals reintegrate. But that’s not the way it currently works. If states are serious about reducing crime, they should think about reinventing the system.
In 2021, New York implemented the “Less is More” Community Supervision and Revocation Reform Act, which reformed parole and reduced incarceration for technical violations. The act limits jail time for such violations to 30 days, allows early parole release and requires court hearings within 30 days. Within the first month of being enacted, the number of technical parole violators had fallen by 40%. By April 2022, technical violators only made up 1.7% of the daily state jail population. They had previously made up about 5% on average.
Along with policies that prevent criminalization in the first place, states that want to prevent recidivism could consider dedicating more resources to programs that help people with life after release. Offering supports such as housing and even direct cash assistance would help people reintegrate into society and create safer communities, research indicates.
On a similar note, criminal records limit access to a range of resources and opportunities such as housing, higher education, voting and social benefits like basic food assistance.
Simply having a criminal record also reduces the likelihood – by roughly 60% – that someone receives a callback after applying for a job. That’s why Skylar and I support automatic criminal record expungement, among other structural reforms.
Put plainly: Research points toward a system in need of comprehensive solutions. Without them, many will remain in the incarceration trap.
Lucius Couloute is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Trinity College. Skylar Hathorn, a recent graduate of Suffolk University and master’s student starting in September 2025, contributed to this article.
JimboXYZ says
Probation didn’t fuel it, becoming that criminal did. I get probation isn’t an easy sentence, maybe, they would opt out of probation & serve that time as additional incarceration instead ? A lot out those dunba**es end up doing the same things or worse on probation to get a 2nd stay in a prison. Some of it is overlooked. Used to work at an office across the street from a probation location. The criminals would drive over & park in our parking lot, walk down the street so they woiuldn’t get caught driving on suspended licesnes, no insurance & whatever else they were violating probation. Some would park in the Costco parking lot, then walk in to avoid violating their probation. These aren’t good people, they cheated to the system & rules to get caught. Served their time & then went back to the same law breaking that got them in trouble. The drug addicts, they go back to their addictions & have no intention of being clean &/or sober. They fuel their own incarcerations. They need to own that instead of Liberal Left sympathy for anyone that endangers the rest of us on a daily basis. Character flaw ? Whatever you want t0o call it, these are folks at the masses level that bend & break the rules & with zero accountability/responsibility, they most often go right back to making a jack ** of themselves. It’s not easy with a criminal record. Even more so with Biden-Harris inflation that has unaffordable housing & $ 6/dozen eggs. Financial hardships are their tools. Just the way this life rolls. System doesn’t work, never has, never will, it’s more a matter that one has the character not to ever become a criminal & make it that easy for the system to re-incarcerate them for what society has imposed as a financial responsibilities.
Concerned says
Perhaps focusing on PROACTIVE approaches to the nation’s need for affordable housing, monetary assistance, mental health/addiction services and job coordination for probation, parolees and all individuals might assist in avoiding the high rate of recidivism. When a person gets out of jail, in many cases, they have no ID, no money, are homeless, have no job and no food. This creates a situation where immediately, they are in dire and illegal situations when trying to sleep, bathe, use a bathroom, eat and sleep. We can do better.
david meeks says
Make prison hard. No one would want to go back if prison was like it used to be. Manual labor, 3 meals you don’t get to choose anything. No TV’s, or any personal items in cells, visitors only allowed 1 time a month, no commissary, no special treatments.
Locked in a cell unless eating or working.
Just saying says
Someone reiterate the study if too many people in a society and in a dense population ..provide insight on how all personality types , disorders, dishonesty, indecency…affect a population. And the mere fact there are too many people. All the types of people go up in number. So it is more.
There is nothing new in our behaviors or what humans are doing. Just more of it.
Stick with your people be a decent human being, work together to achieve a goal and live your life.
Bad people are just that. If you want to change you can. Only you can change you.
There are many programs for those who want to change and help themselves.
Lobotomies were a form of control over mentally ill or just bad destructive people that could not be helped.
Remember that?
Ray W, says
According to the author of the article, ours is a criminal justice system still in need of reform. 113 years ago, while serving in the British Cabinet as Home Secretary, Winston Churchill introduced reform legislation to address issues within Great Britain’s penal system, with three different approaches to three different issues.
Taking from Randolph S. Churchill’s second volume of his biography of his father, published in 1967, (Winston Churchill himself, as a young man, wrote a widely acclaimed biography of his own father), I will post this comment in four submissions.
As foundation, here is the first submission:
“Churchill, as already stated, was the second youngest man ever to hold the office of Home Secretary; almost certainly he was the only Home Secretary ever to have been in prison. He was, of course, a prisoner of war and his jailors the humane Boers, but the loss of freedom irked him greatly, and he felt he had some affinity with the life of a prisoner. He has described how, apart from his schooldays, his days as a captive were the unhappiest of his life. Home Secretaries of modern times usually aspire to be ‘reforming’ Secretaries, but Churchill had a personal motive stronger than most. He sought to help prisoners in every way, short of escaping.
“Asquith told Churchill in a letter dated 2 October 1911 that when he was at the Home Office in 1895, though he had not the time to accomplish much, he was able to leave behind him Sir John Ruggles-Brise, an outstanding Chairman of the Prison Commissioners. This remarkable man who was to remain in this post until he reached the retirement age in 1921 was behind many of the penal reforms initiated by Liberal administrations between 1906 and 1914. Under Churchill’s predecessor, Herbert Gladstone, Probation and Borstal Institutions were introduced to deal with young offenders, and Preventive Detention was introduced to deal with the recidivists, or habitual criminals. But the overwhelming which Gladstone had been unable to tackle and which still confronted Churchill on his arrival at the Home Office was that too many people were being sent to prison. Of the 184,000 who were imprisoned in 1908-9, more than half were committed in default of payment of a fine, and a third for drunkenness. Clearly here were areas where reform was necessary and urgent.
“Churchill’s strong sense of the shame that a prison sentence could bring, combined with a desire to nullify the propaganda value that suffragettes enjoyed from exposing the prison conditions to which they were condemned, led to his first pronouncement of intentions in the House of Commons in March 1910: ‘I feel, as did my predecessor, that prison rules which are suitable to criminals jailed for dishonesty or cruelty or other crimes of moral turpitude, should not be applied inflexibly to those whose general character is good and whose offenses, however reprehensible, do not involve personal dishonor.’ He promised that the so-called political prisoners should be treated separately in that they should not be forced to wear prison clothing, should not be searched or forced to take the regulation bath, should be allowed food from outside, to take regular exercise and to talk while so doing. This amelioration of conditions for prisoners of this kind — which still prevails to this day — was generally welcomed and Churchill personally enjoyed a good deal of praise from the press and the public for this action. …
“For the next three months Churchill busied himself in studying the problems of the prison services. He took pains to work out the costs where extra funds were involved, and he was willing to listen to outside evidence from such eminent men as W. T. Stead and Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, both of whom had been imprisoned in their time, and John Galsworthy whose play Justice had recently been performed. …
“The result of Churchill’s studies was presented to the House of Commons on July 20, when on the Prison’s Vote he announced far-reaching reforms. While some had to wait four years before they became subject of legislation, the spirit of these reforms was carried into effect straight away. They were of lasting significance and remain outstanding, even when compared with the other great measures of the period.”
Make of this foundational comment what you will.
Me?
Prison reform has been debated among the English-speaking people for far more than a century and there remains still more room for still more debate. I remain indebted to Lincoln, if the following paraphrased statement truly was uttered by him: All great problems are unsolvable. If a problem can be solved, it cannot be a deemed a great problem.
But let me point out the Churchill knew more than a century ago that there is a difference between imprisoning the intentionally dishonest criminals amongst us and imprisoning the honest criminals amongst us. The concept of moral turpitude applied then and it applies today. There are crimes that are considered acts of moral turpitude. There are crimes that are not. Theft is an act of moral turpitude. Driving while license suspended is not. Trespassing is not an act of moral turpitude, except when it is committed with the intent to commit an act of moral turpitude. Trespassing over a fence while young with the intent to commit cow tipping is not an act of moral turpitude. Trespassing over a fence with the intent to steal eggs is an act of moral turpitude. One of Florida’s general jury instructions contains language that permits jurors to disregard testimony from a witness where there is competent and reliable evidence in the record that the witness has previously been convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude. The instruction does not apply to those who have been convicted of misdemeanors that do not involve moral turpitude.
Make no mistake. It is a misdemeanor offense under federal law for an immigrant to trespass by crossing the border without immediately submitting to federal immigration agents for documentation. But if the intent behind the decision to cross the border without obtaining documentation is for a married couple to find work and to work hard in order to make a better life for the couple’s children, then I submit to all FlaglerLive readers that crossing the border without submitting to border agents for documentation, while a criminal offense, is an offense entirely lacking in evidence of moral turpitude.
We have people on this site who defend the right of others among us to engage in acts of intellectual dishonesty by laundering lies uttered by others for political gain. James Madison deemed such people a “pestilence.” Churchill recognized that dishonesty was considered in his day an act of moral turpitude. We don’t seem to hold the same standard today. Now, can it be argued that, to some, lying for political gain has become a virtue?
Ray W, says
Here begins the second submission of four:
“First and most revolutionary was the proposal to alter the regulations for the payment of fines:
“‘There are almost an unlimited number of cases of men whose character is well known, who have committed an offense for which they are properly punished by a fine, who could pay if time were allowed them, but who, in default of having the money with them in their pockets, are hurried off to gaol. Let the House see what an injurious operation that is. The State loses its fine, the man goes to prison, perhaps for the first time. A shocking event. He goes through all the formalities for a four or five day sentence that would apply if he were sentenced to a long term of penal servitude. He is photographed, taken off in a Black Maria, and his fingerprints are taken. All these painful processes are gone through just as in the case of a long sentence. Further, more than half the people committed to prison in default of paying fines are committed for the offense of drunkenness; ad in the case of drunkenness the enforcement of a fine is a far better punishment than a committal to prison; for his release is very often celebrated by a prisoner but a fine effectively enforced means a period of temperance.’
“This proposal to allow ‘time to pay’ had been in the air for some time. The Surrey magistrates had been doing something of the kind since 1909, but there were doubts among the Prison Commissioners and the Home Office staff, particularly Troup, whether it was advisable to introduce this on a national scale because of the lessening of the deterrent effect. Churchill pressed this measure into the open and it was accepted as a principle of national policy. In ten years the result was dramatic. Whereas 95,686 were imprisoned for non-payment of fines in 1908-9, the number in 1918-19 was 5,264. Whereas 62,822 were sent to prison in 1908-9 for drunkenness, the number in 1918-19 was 1,670. And despite the Royal example, the consumption of alcohol had not decreased markedly during the war.”
Make of this what you will.
Ray W, says
The third submission of four:
“The second important proposal was an extension of the Children Act of 1908 to cover offenders between sixteen and twenty-one. The main clauses were that: (a) no young person between sixteen and twenty-one should be sent to prison unless he is incorrigible or has committed a serious offense; (b) that if it is necessary to send him to prison, the sentence should be for more than a month; (3) that he is not to receive a sentence that is merely punitive but positively of a curative and educative character; (d) that the full Borstal sentence should be relaxed in the case of youthful offenders; and that (e) some form of disciplinary correction (drill) should take place outside prison in the case of those youthful offenders guilty of petty crimes (gambling, rowdyism and swearing).
“In support of this measure, Churchill said: ‘The House will, I think, sympathise and will support me in any steps that may be necessary to prevent these undesirable commitments [to gaol]. The evil only falls on the sons of the working classes. The sons of other classes commit many of the same offenses. In their boisterous and exuberant spirits in their days at Oxford and Cambridge they commit offenses for which scores of the sons of the working classes are committed to prison, without any injury being inflicted on them. … [because they could afford to pay the fine]. At least 5,000 lads committed these offenses every year would be saved from the knowledge of gaol if only some such method of correction as I have indicated could be devised with proper regard for the nourishment of the boy. It would inflict a punishment on him which would not injure him, but, on the other hand, might actually benefit him. These reforms only produced results gradually, but the progress was steady. In 1910 there were 12,376 boys and 1,189 girls under 21 in prison. In 1919 there were only 3,474 and 762 respectively. Churchill went on to confirm that the relaxation for political prisoners announced in March should become part of the new Prison Rules.
“He also made an important amendment in the Rules relating to solitary confinement. This was now to be reduced to one month, except in the case of recidivists or others who actually desired solitary confinement. Churchill proposed that lectures and concerts should be given in every prison: this provoked considerable opposition from Earl Winterton, one of his sharpest critics, on the grounds that Churchill was making prison life too comfortable. When Winterton came to write his own memoirs in 1955, however, he described Churchill as a ‘good Home Secretary — he humanized and improved the penal system.'”
Make of this what you will.
Me?
Recently, a number of the more vengeful FlaglerLive commenters among us vilified a judge after she agreed to consider all options available under applicable law before deciding an appropriate sentence in a leaving the scene of a collision resulting in death. We are a nation of justice, not a nation of vengeance. The judge, based on the reported circumstances of the plea, has done everything that justice demands of her. In no way does she deserve any criticism for not stooping to the demands of the vengeful among us.
Ray W, says
The fourth and final submission:
“Last, but almost as important as his proposals for giving ‘time to pay,’ were Churchill’s recommendations for the supervision of released convicts by the establishment of a central after-care association, composed of official members and representatives of the Prisoner’s Aid Societies. He also proposed that police supervision after release should be suspended and that the ticket-of-leave or licence system should be abolished. This was probably as energetic an attempt to deal with the after-care of prisoners as has been made by any Home Secretary before or since.
“The first reactions were generally favourable. Galsworthy in a letter to The Times on 23 July 1910 wrote: ‘These changes are one and all inspired by imagination, without which reform is deadly, and by common sense without which it is dangerous.’ But Sir Edward Clayton, a former Inspector of Prisons and Secretary to the Prison Commission, expressed the more conservative and popular view when he wrote in the January 1911 issue of Nineteenth Century and After: ‘I believe that these changes are in the right direction, and all that requires to be guarded against is, that we do not ignore the poorer classes outside the prison walls while we do so much for the worst classes of our population.’
Make of this what you will.
Skibum says
While making a good faith effort to minimize a criminal’s desire to reoffend may certainly be laudable “strategy”, I want to push back on the statement as well as any misconception that it is a realistic “goal” to actually achieve. This is primarily because you are dealing with so many things that are out of society’s control to fix, mend, manipulate or whatever term you wish to use. So many adult criminals began their careers of crime way before they became adults. They decided early on that they were not going to adhere to society’s norms, rules and laws after choosing who they wished to associate – others of the same persuasion. Trying to prevent a person from committing more crimes, against their will, is akin to trying to prevent an alcoholic or drug addict to come clean if they have no desire on their own to change their life. What appeals to the vast majority of criminals is the instant benefit they get from rewarding themselves with property, money or whatever with near zero effort because they have made the life choice long ago that it is easier to just take what you want rather than having to work for it. That kind of messed up mindset is very, very hard to change. It is not impossible, and yes, some criminals can and do change to become productive members of society, but it MUST come from within, and when you have that mindset that you are going to take the easy road in life and get ahead by any means possible without putting forth any effort, that is only leading an individual down the path that will eventually lead to criminal charges, court appearances and stints in prison, where once they actually get there, the criminals find out it is not such a horrible environment after all where they get “three hots and a cot”, medical and dental care, and get to relax and recreate with their peers while they plan their next criminal adventure when they are released. What’s not to like for a person like that?