Rethinking the Use of Community Supervision

"This Article examines the reasons why community supervision so often fails and challenges popular assumptions about the role community supervision should play in efforts to reduce overreliance on imprisonment. While probation and post-release supervision serve important purposes in many cases, they are often imposed on the wrong people and executed in ways that predictably lead to revocation" (p. 1015). Six sections make up this article: introduction; history and structures of community supervision-probation and post-release supervision; the dynamics of revocation-conditions of release, methods of supervision, and responses to rule violations; responses to the problem of revocation; the different approach of limiting community supervision-limiting the sanction, limiting release conditions, and limiting terms of supervision; and conclusion.