Rethinking Probation: Community Supervision, Community Safety

摘要

For two days in December 1998, thoughtful leaders and innovators in probation and211u001eparole gathered for a strategic discussion sponsored by the Office of Justice 211u001ePrograms, U.S. Department of Justice. We put to them the following questions: Are 211u001ewe at the dawn of a golden age of probation and parole. Has practical and 211u001escientific knowledge accumulated to the point where improved community 211u001esupervision of offenders can make a big difference to the public; Or is this a 211u001emoment of great risk and vulnerability. With correctional resources increasingly 211u001eallocated to imprisonment, does community corrections have the operational 211u001ecapacity to produce something the public wants. Would public value flow from 211u001ereinvestment in probation and parole supervision. Out task is to give readers an 211u001eopportunity to hear some of that conversation, to think about what it portends 211u001efor the future of this field, and to decide whether the moment is, as most of 211u001ethose present thought, one of 'dangerous opportunity' for probation and parole.