On any given day, about 10,000 offenders are on some form of federal conditional release, be it temporary absence, program release, day parole, full parole or statutory release. The supervision may include counselling, verification of the offender's behaviour, confirmation of employment and referral to agencies and individuals as required.
Parole officers use a variety of strategies and tools to help carry out their responsibilities.
Parole officers are also expected to maintain close ties with the police and the offender's family, friends and employer to verify the offender's employment or education and residence status through scheduled and unscheduled site visits, and to monitor the offender's compliance with special National Parole Board conditions. The final and most extreme strategy available to the parole officer is to issue a warrant to either temporarily or permanently suspend the offender's conditional release status. The next generation of community corrections Since 1992, the Correctional Service of Canada has examined compliance with conditional release supervision standards through national and regional audits. The overall results were positive, but the audits indicated a need for improved training. Unfortunately, these audits did not provide a detailed analysis of the quality or usefulness of supervision contacts, nor did they assess the amount of time dedicated to counselling or rehabilitative efforts versus surveillance or control-oriented strategies.