If those who break the conditions of probation, even with what seem like minor lapses, are held accountable for it, the public will be safer. Although our jails and prisons hold nearly two million people, there are many more on probation and not just for misdemeanors marring otherwise clean records. The Bureau of Justice Statistics reports that in 1999 more than 3.7 million adults were under supervision of probation officers nationwide. Nearly two million of them had been convicted of one or more felony crimes but sentenced to probation for those crimes, rather than to prison. In many states, about half the people on probation have histories of criminal violence.
Probation is supposed to rehabilitate the offender and protect the public.
But about 40 percent of all felony probationers are rearrested for fresh felonies within three years of being placed under community supervision. Because record keeping has become so spotty, no one knows how many absconders there are today. Few attempts are made to locate them or bring them to court. Half of all probationers violate the terms of their sentences, but only a fifth go to jail as a result. In 1998, some 255,000 probationers were incarcerated for new felony crimes committed while under supervision, and another 615,000 violated one or more terms of their sentences but received no punishment.