Despite increasing evidence regarding the efficacy of risk assessment and intervention in community supervision, there continues to be relatively weak adherence to such evidence in its application to decision-making. Regarding assessment, such a lack of fidelity purportedly leads to higher rates of overrides, degraded accuracy, and inefficiency in resource allocation. Regarding intervention, failure to implement evidence-based practice and recognize the role of probation officers as agents of change further diminishes supervision effectiveness. With probation populations at an all-time high and a burgeoning violation rate, this chapter summarizes the emerging probation research to situate the need for clarity of purpose and improved decision-making to maintain public confidence in probation. The chapter presents a decision framework utilizing empirically informed domains as a logic model to ensure probation officer decisions are fair, transparent, and defensible. This framework incorporates both static and dynamic information to ensure decisions are accurate and contextual.

Due to the historically bourgeoning prison population, how and when offenders re-enter the community has received increased attention. Parole, the discretionary release of an offender to serve the remainder of their sentence in the community, is seen by many as a solution to prison overcrowding concerns. Many jurisdictions call upon paroling authorities to review the prisoner’s case and to assign release conditions intended to assist in the re-entry process and mitigate public safety concerns for both mandatory and discretionary releases. This chapter provides a brief overview of the history and current status of parole. Other areas discussed include how risk assessment is incorporated, and separate from, parole decisions, the various methods by which parole decisions are made, commentary on the existing evidence of parole efficacy, discussions of the role of victims in the decision-making process, and considerations for various offender sub-populations.