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CHAPTER 16
Making It: Supervision in the Community
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
After reading this chapter, students should be able to:
2. Define community supervision and revocation of community supervision.
4. Analyze the constraints on community supervision.
6. Identify the major problems that people on parole confront.
8. Describe the effectiveness of postrelease supervision.
LESSON PLAN
Correlated to PowerPoints
I. Overview of the Postrelease Function
Learning Objective 1: Describe the major characteristics of the postrelease function of the
corrections system.
A. Returning to the streets after years behind bars is a shock.
B. Conditions of release exist to regulate conduct of those returning to the streets.
1. Most normal events take on overwhelming significance.
3. However, the vast majority of convicted individuals released from prison
remain subject to correctional control.
4. The formerly incarcerated individual has many obstacles to overcome: time
5. No truly clean start is possible, and the outside world can be alien and
unpredictable.
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Media Tool
Visit http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/06/21/man-robs-bank-for-1-to-get-health-care-in-jail/
o Time Magazine article
o Discuss this in class. What does it say about our society that some feel the need to be
imprisoned just to receive health care? Is providing incarcerated people with free health
care an obligation states and the federal government should carry? Why or why not?
What If Scenario
What if you are a prison resident who has children and you have made mistakes while
incarcerated, which have caused disciplinary action. Do you think you should still be eligible for
prelease programs?
See Assignment 2
C. Community Supervision
Learning Objective 2: Define community supervision and revocation of community
supervision.
1. Restrictions on people on parole are rationalized on the grounds that people
who have been incarcerated must readjust to the community gradually so that they
will not simply fall back into preconviction habits and associations.
a. With little preparation, convicted individuals move from the highly
structured, authoritarian prison life into the complex, temptation-filled free
D. Revocation
2. Parole can be revoked for two reasons: committing a new crime or violating the
conditions of parole (technical violation).
4. When a parole officer wants to revoke parole, the U.S. Supreme Court requires
a two-stage revocation proceeding.
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a. In the first stage, the parole board determines whether there is probable
cause that a violation has occurred. If probable cause is established, the
person on parole has the right to the following:
b. In the second stage, the parole board decides if the violation is severe
See Assignment 4
II. The Structure of Community Supervision
Learning Objective 3: Explain how community supervision is structured.
A. Three forces influence the newly released person’s adjustment to free society:
1. The parole officer
3. The experiences of the person
B. Supervision can be viewed as a series of stages in which attachments develop (Figure
16.5).
C. Agents of Community Supervision: The parole officers are asked to play two roles:
cop and social worker.
2. As social workers, they are responsible for assisting the parolee’s adjustment to
the community.
3. The parole officer’s style has been described as one of two “hidden conditions”
of supervision.
a. Officers have certain expectations about how clients will behave and
how to treat them:
b. The supervision plan states what the parole officer is going to do about
his or her client’s problems and how he or she is going to supervise them.
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D. The Community Supervision Bureaucracy
Learning Objective 4: Analyze the constraints on community supervision.
1. Parole officers do not work in a vacuum; they face limits on the approaches
2. Workload: Lipsky points out that the difficulties faced by many clients of
human services are so complex that “the job…is in a sense impossible to do in
4. Constraints on Officers’ Authority: Parole officers, in using discretion, balance
many constraints, though they are often portrayed as having absolute authority
III. Residential Programs
Learning Objective 5: Describe residential programs and how they help people on parole.
A. These serve people when they are first released from prison; most house a limited
number of people at any one time.
B. Residential centers face many problems:
2. High operating expenses
4. Unwelcome in their communities
C. The most common type of community correctional center is the halfway house, or
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1. In the most secure kind, residents work during the day (often in groups) and
then return at night to a group housing unit.
2. Work furlough is the other kind, where individuals work and live at home
during the week and return to the prison for the weekend.
D. Effectiveness of community correctional centers
1. The earliest studies of residential release programs tended to find that these
3. However, there is no consistent evidence that work centers really work.
What If Scenario
What if you lived in a neighborhood which was family oriented and relatively quiet? You soon
discover that one of the houses will become a halfway house/residential home for convicted
felons. Do you advocate for or against this?
Class Discussion/Activity
Ask students to research residential programs and locations throughout your state. Discuss the
pros and cons to these types of programs as well as their overall effectiveness.
IV. The Experience of Postrelease Life
Learning Objective 6: Identify the major problems that people on parole confront.
A. The Strangeness of Reentry
1. Release from prison can be euphoric but also a letdown.
3. Initial attempts to restore old ties can be threatening and disappointing.
4. Freedom is now an unfamiliar environment; routine decision-making skills
atrophy.
B. Supervision and Surveillance
2. They must report to a parole officer and undergo community supervision until
their full sentence has been completed.
3. People who provide the supervision define their work as “support,” but the
person released may not view the officer as being supportive.
C. The Problem of Unmet Personal Needs: People on parole have very practical
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D. Barriers to Success: Soon after release, individuals learn that they have an in-between
status: They are back in society but not totally free.
1. Civil Disabilities: The right to vote and to hold public office are two civil rights
2. Employment: Barriers are both formal and informal; the effect of statutory and
informal discrimination must be added to many individuals’ unrealistic
E. Expungement and Pardon
do.
2. Pardons are executive acts of clemency that effectively excuse individuals from
suffering the consequences of conviction for a criminal act.
Media Tool
Visit http://ffh.films.com/id/13086/
o Getting Out and Staying Out
o Discuss this video in class. Have students discuss what challenges they would have
expected parolees to face. Which ones had they not considered? What other challenges
would a recent parolee likely face and how might they impact their future?
Class Discussion/Activity
Ask students to conduct research as to whether persons convicted of felonies in their home state
can vote. Are they surprised by what they find? Let the class discuss whether it is acceptable or
morally right for felons to lose their right to vote. Have the students organize a classroom debate
on the issue.
What If Scenario
What if you learned that the man who moved in the house next to yours was just released from
prison? What if the opposite occurred and it was a female just released from prison?
See Assignment 5
V. The Person on Parole as “Dangerous”
Learning Objective 7: Explain why some people on parole are viewed as dangerous and how
society handles this problem.
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A. After the brutal murder of 12-year-old Polly Klaas, by a man on parole, a national
movement toward life sentences for third-time felons was spurred.
B. The rape and murder of four-year-old Megan Kanka by a paroled sex offender led to a
See Assignment 1
VI. The Elements of Successful Reentry
Learning Objective 8: Describe the effectiveness of postrelease supervision.
A. Prison is a harsh enough experience that it would seem unlikely that most who are
allowed to leave would eventually return.
B. Four adjustment supports that are necessary to successful reentry are these:
1. Getting substance abuse under control
3. Getting a community support system
4. Getting a new sense of “who I am”
C. Some argue that failure is best understood as a relapse process.
VII. Postrelease Supervision
A. How Effective Is Postrelease Supervision?
1. Recidivism means different things to different people; rates vary from 5 to 50
2. Typically an analysis of recidivism is based on rearrest or reimprisonment for
4. Carefully monitored classification, case planning, and systematic officer
5. The effectiveness has earned mixed reviews.
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B. What Are Postrelease Supervision’s Prospects?
1. Even states that have altered release laws or policies seem to recognize that
individuals need some help or control in the months after release.
3. The broad discretionary power of the parole officer is disappearing.
4. In its place, a much more restrictive effort is gaining support in which
conditions are imposed and strictly enforced.
Class Discussion/Activity
Play the scene of Brooks’s suicide from the movie Shawshank Redemption. Discuss what it
means to be institutionalized and the effects of long-term institutionalization on an incarcerated
individual’s ability to succeed on the outside. View the clip:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-p1z2D-A4iY
Media Tool
Visit http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/hard-time/videos/life-after-prison/
o Hard Time Prisoner Reentry
o Discuss this video in class. Ask students to think about the challenges Rockefeller faces
as someone who previously spent time in prison. Were they surprised at Rockefeller’s
creative career choice? Do they think that the challenges that Rockefeller faces are fair,
given the nature of his crime?
What If Scenario
What if you are a business owner in a community where a prison is located? Would you hire
someone who had been in prison? Are there programs that would help you make this decision? Is
it right to give employers tax credits for hiring individuals who have previously offended?
See Assignment 3
LECTURE NOTES
This chapter describes what happens when people are released from prison. Be sure students are
familiar with the terms and concepts associated with this process, especially community
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students that many people return to prison not because they have committed a crime but because
they have violated the terms of their freedom. This was discussed in the previous chapter.
The authors introduce three forces that influence the newly released individual’s adjustment to
free society: the parole officer, the parole bureaucracy, and the individuals’ experiences.
Students should be made aware of the various relationships between all these parties and how the
associations operate as well as how each comes to influence the individual released from prison.
It may be helpful to create a fictitious person on parole with certain characteristics, and ask
One of the most important parts of this chapter focuses on the individual’s experience of
postrelease life. Students may never have given much thought to the issues highlighted in this
section. It will be useful to discuss the various complications and problems of postrelease life
with your students. Be sure students come to realize that many of the reasons people on parole
return to prison is because there are barriers to their success on the outside. It may be a good idea
Another important part of this chapter is the section that explores the potential dangerousness
posed by people on parole in the community. However, as the authors point out, public
perception does not necessarily match reality. It will be constructive to tease out what students’
Review the elements associated with successful reentry. The assumptions are that, when it comes
to supervision, more is always better. It is also generally assumed that supervision is effective.
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© 2019 Cengage. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or
in part.
Students should be made aware of the nuance of supervision and that scale is not the only issue.
This would also be a good time to discuss the realities of the job of parole officer, especially in
terms of caseload and competing pressures.
KEY TERMS
Community correctional center
A small-group living facility for convicted individuals, especially those who have been recently
released from prison.
Conditions of release
Restrictions on conduct that people on parole must obey as a legally binding requirement of
being released.
Expungement
A legal process that results in the removal of a conviction from official records.
ASSIGNMENTS
1. Have students imagine that they have just been released from prison after a five-year
term. What are the first things they will do? What problems do they expect to face?
2. Have students discuss the pros and cons of early release of incarcerated individuals. What
if the individual who was on early release is one who has victimized a student and/or a
3. Have students summarize the Justice Policy Institute article “For Immediate Release:
How to Safely Reduce Prison Population and Support People Returning to Their
Communities” (2011). The article can be accessed through:
4. Have students conduct research on parole revocations in your state. How do they stack up
against the national average cited in the chapter? Have students discuss what they think
5. Have students research which states take away convicted individuals’ right to vote and if
ANSWERS TO END-OF-CHAPTER DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
Although the answers provided below will vary from student to student, the responses should
include at a minimum a discussion of the following key points.
1. Imagine that you have just been released from prison after a five-year term. What are the first
things you will do? What problems do you expect to face?
2. It is said that probation officers tend to take a social work approach and parole officers tend to
take a law enforcement approach. How might these differences in approach be explained?
3. Why are some parole officers reluctant to ask that a client’s parole be revoked for technical
violations? What organizational pressures may be involved?
4. Why are so many occupations closed to people convicted of felonies?
© 2019 Cengage. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or
in part.