Date: 05-25-2023
"Connecticut has a momentous opportunity to reshape the probation and parole
systems and deliver racial, economic, and procedural justice to people under supervision", but will it? |
This report is a joint release from Katal and Prison Policy Initiative:
Introduction
In the United States, the number of people under the surveillance of probation and parole systems is nearly twice the number of those behind bars. Community supervision, which refers mainly to probation and parole, is “too big to succeed.” (Simply defined, probation is a court-ordered “suspended” sentence
served in the community, typically with a set period of supervision; parole is a conditional release after incarceration.) This is true throughout the country — and Connecticut is no exception, particularly in terms of its outsize probation system, which jeopardizes the well-being and progress of more than 30,000 people and their families.
Chronically underfunded and overly punitive, probation rarely serves as an alternative to incarceration, as it was originally intended. And people released from prison to parole supervision often struggle to rebuild their lives during the reentry process. But the sheer size of these populations is not the biggest
problem: noncriminal “technical” violations of probation and parole — like missing a curfew or testing positive for alcohol or other drug use — are known drivers of mass incarceration, sending hundreds of thousands of people nationwide into jails and prisons every year. (Connecticut is one of six states that has a unified system of jails and prisons; the Department of Correction [DOC] manages both types of incarceration.)
In Connecticut, as in other states, excessive consequences for these noncriminal violations can result in incarceration. This approach disproportionately burdens communities of color and is a costly endeavor for the entire state; research and experience tell us that most community supervision does not contribute to public safety and that probation and parole populations can and must be reduced. Other states have made such changes, offering Connecticut guidance about the steps to take for reform. For instance, in 2021, New York passed the transformative Less Is More law to help break cycles of supervision and
incarceration.
Read the full report
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