BENEFITS OF SUPERVISION

Did you know?

TMore than 135,000 defendants and offenders who

have been released to the community by the federal

courts are currently supervised by U.S. probation and

pretrial services officers.

TThese defendants and offenders are on probation,

on parole, on supervised release after a period of

incarceration, or under pretrial supervision while

waiting to appear in court. 

TIn supervising defendants and offenders, officers

serve as agents of the court, ensuring that these

individuals comply with court-ordered release

conditions, minimizing the danger they pose to the

public, and promoting law-abiding behavior. 

TOfficers’ supervision duties include visiting

defendants and offenders at home, verifying that they

are at work, monitoring their attendance at drug

treatment or mental health counseling, arranging for

educational or vocational training for them, helping

them find jobs, and referring them to appropriate

community resources.

What are the benefits of supervision?

A significant benefit is that community supervision is

a cost-saving alternative to jail or prison. On average,

it costs almost $61 a day to house a person in the

federal prison system as compared with less than $9

a day to supervise that person in the community.

Many of supervision’s benefits directly affect the

safety of the community and the lives of the

defendants and offenders under supervision. Listed

below are six such benefits illustrated by actual

probation and pretrial services cases. 

1. Supervision gives officers the means to enforce

conditions of release ordered by the court, such as

those requiring persons to perform community

service or pay fines and restitution. 

Twenty-one offenders in the Middle District of Florida,

each ordered by the court to perform community

service, participated in a week-long project in Ocala

National Forest, which was coordinated by the

probation office. The offenders’ efforts resulted in

numerous improvements to the park and saved

thousands of taxpayer dollars. The group cleared

and dug trails, laid sod, installed tile in restrooms, and

hung lighting. These were improvements that

probably would not have been made otherwise

because of lack of funds.

In the Eastern District of Wisconsin, a probation

officer’s rigorous enforcement of the conditions of

supervision compelled one offender–a businessman

who had embezzled from his employees’ pension

funds–to give back to his victims what he had taken. 

Despite the offender’s protests that he did not have

money to pay restitution, the officer’s scrutiny of the

offender’s affluent lifestyle and his questionable

commingling of business and personal finances

revealed otherwise. As a result of the officer’s efforts,

the offender paid $40,000, the balance of restitution

owed.

2. Supervision protects the public by reducing the

risk that persons under supervision will commit

future crimes.

Mental health counseling, which included a polygraph

examination to gauge the danger the offender posed

to the community, revealed that an offender on

supervised release in the Eastern District of

Tennessee for transmitting pornography on the

Internet was stalking an eight-year-old girl. The

child’s family was notified, the offender received

treatment to address the problem, and a potential

sexual assault was averted.

In the Southern District of Ohio, the probation office

helped ensure community safety by dedicating

considerable resources to the intensive supervision

of one offender, a confirmed anti-abortionist

convicted in two federal courts of damaging or

conspiring to damage abortion clinics. A team of

officers worked together to supervise the offender,

who lived in a remote area, restricting the man’s

travel, monitoring his associates, and mobilizing to

verify his whereabouts every time abortion clinics or

their staffs were targets of violence. The offender

completed his supervision without incident.
3. Supervision may provide substance abuse

treatment to enable defendants and offenders to

cope without relying on drugs or alcohol.

Desperate to hide her drug use and beat the drug

testing that the court required her to undergo, a

defendant on pretrial supervision in the Eastern

District of North Carolina ingested a homemade drugmasking agent that contained bleach. She was lucky

to survive. The woman’s pretrial services officer,

working with contract counselors, arranged to place

her in an inpatient drug treatment program, where

she responded well to treatment. 

To support her and her boyfriend’s cocaine habits, a

teller embezzled bank funds. The woman, who was

from a stable, middle-class family and who had not

used drugs until she met her boyfriend, was placed in

a diversion program, rather than jail, in the Northern

District of Ohio. Pretrial services enrolled the woman

in a drug treatment program–which she successfully

completed–and put her in touch with a support group

for women in abusive relationships. She was able to

leave her boyfriend, who had threatened her

constantly. 

4. Supervision may provide mental health

treatment to enable defendants and offenders to

function better in the community.

Intensive supervision by the probation officer has

kept an offender in the District of Delaware stable for

nine months now, the most time the individual has

been stable without hospitalization since the age of

13. Released after serving a sentence for mailing

threatening communications, the offender–a

schizophrenic with a history of substance abuse and

violence–had no job, no home, and no relatives. The

officer found him temporary shelter and arranged for

the probation office to pay for the medication that

allowed the man to function.

Quick action to arrange for emergency psychological

counseling and halfway house placement most likely

prevented the suicide of an offender who was on

supervised release in the Middle District of Florida. 

His wife had left him, he was living in a hotel, and he

had been robbed of his savings when he got drunk,

got a gun, and called his probation officer to

apologize for disappointing her. The officer kept him

talking, tracked him down, and provided immediate

assistance.

5. Supervision may provide educational or

vocational training that boosts defendants’ and

offenders’ capacity to earn a living.

A woman came to the probation and pretrial services

office in the Eastern District of Texas with multiple

problems: depression, a history of drug use, and

illiteracy. The court ordered mental health treatment

and participation in a literacy program as conditions

of the woman’s supervision. Working with a contract

treatment provider, the pretrial services officer had the

woman evaluated for both depression and dyslexia,

helped her find an appropriate educational program,

and arranged for individual counseling.

A defendant who was arrested in the Northern District

of Ohio for distribution of heroin and possessing a

firearm during the commission of a crime had a 13-

year heroin addiction and spoke no English. He

withdrew from heroin while in detention and then was

placed in residential treatment. The probation office

located a community group that serviced the area’s

small Spanish population, and the group was willing

to translate for the man and give him English lessons. 

His English improved immensely. He transferred to

an independent living program, received individual

counseling, and attended weekly Alcoholics

Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous meetings. He

also got a job for the first time in his life. 

6. As an alternative to incarceration, supervision

allows individuals to live with their families, hold

jobs, and be productive members of society. 

In spite of a strong recommendation for detention

from the assistant U.S. attorney, a defendant who was

from the Eastern District of North Carolina but

arrested in New York City was placed in a halfway

house at the pretrial services officer’s

recommendation. That way, he could work to support

his wife and children. During supervision, he got a

job, sent money home to his family, and contributed

toward his subsistence cost at the halfway house. He

complied with all conditions of release and did so well

on supervision that eventually he was allowed

weekend visits with his family at the home of relatives

nearby.

While awaiting sentencing for trying to rob a bank by

calling in a bomb threat, a single mother of three in

the Northern District of Ohio was able to hold a job,

remain sober, and continue caring for her children

with the help of an intensive outpatient substance

abuse program and psychological counseling

arranged for by the pretrial services office.

Office of Probation and Pretrial Services

Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts

January 2003