U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government, Department of Justice.

NCJRS Virtual Library

The Virtual Library houses over 235,000 criminal justice resources, including all known OJP works.
Click here to search the NCJRS Virtual Library

Focusing on High-Risk Parolees: An Experiment to Reduce Commitments to the Texas Department of Corrections

NCJ Number
306815
Journal
Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency Volume: 29 Issue: 1 Dated: 1992 Pages: 34-61
Author(s)
Susan Turner; Joan Petersilia
Date Published
1992
Length
28 pages
Annotation

The authors discuss and analyze the effects of the Intensive Supervision Parole in Texas through their use of a randomized experiment; they lay out their research methodology and outcomes and discuss the implications of their experiment.

Abstract

This article presents the results of a randomized experiment conducted to assess the effects of Intensive Supervision Parole (ISP), a Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles program whose primary objective was to help alleviate prison crowding. The evaluation assessed program implementation, as well as the program's impact on offenders and system costs. Overall, the ISP results were the opposite of what was intended. The study found that ISP was not associated with fewer arrests, even though ISP offenders received more contacts than offenders on routine supervision. ISP was associated with increased technical violations, particularly in Houston, where the ISP model was implemented more fully. At the end of one year, about 30 percent of all ISP participants were in prison, whereas this was the case with about 18 percent of those on routine parole. Instead of saving the State of Texas money, ISP supervision turned out to be 1.7 times the cost of routine parole. The ISP program did however constitute an appropriate intermediate punishment, also an important Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles objective. If jurisdictions are primarily interested in providing much-needed flexibility in sentencing decisions by imposing an intermediate punishment that more closely fits the crimes of offenders, then ISP holds promise. If, however, they are primarily interested in reducing recidivism and system costs, then ISP programs, as currently structured—with a focus on surveillance as opposed to treatment—will likely fall short. Publisher Abstract Provided