The Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 (1) created the U.S. Sentencing Commission to develop a set of federal sentencing guidelines,(2) replaced parole with supervised release for postprison supervision, and (3) made probation a separate sentence. Prior to these changes, federal offenders could be sentenced to a term of probation as part of a suspended prison sentence, meaning that they were released from custody but had to routinely report to officers of the court (probation officers), or be sentenced to prison terms. Offenders who exhibited good behavior while in prison could be released on parole after serving as little as one-third of their prison terms. The United States Parole Commission (USPC) determined whether and when an offender was granted parole. The Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 made probation a separate sentence and restricted an offender’s eligibility for probation. The sentencing guidelines, in implementing the provisions of the act, are more detailed and provide judges less sentencing discretion than the system they replaced. The implementation of the sentencing guidelines, laws providing mandatory minimum sentences for certain offenses (mostly drug and violent offenses), and laws broadening federal criminal jurisdiction have together resulted in a steadily growing federal prison population. From fiscal years 1990 through 1996, the number of inmates in federal prisons grew from 58,021 to 94,695. Under the sentencing guidelines, offenders sentenced to a prison term of 1 year or more usually also receive a term of postprison supervision (about 1 to 5 years) called supervised release. Offenders must serve at least 85 percent of their prison terms before they are eligible for supervised release. The primary goals of community supervision are to control risk to the community, enforce conditions of supervision, and provide for correctional treatment. Appendix II includes flowcharts of the supervision process that depict how offenders under each type of supervision enter and proceed through the community supervision program. Probation officers are responsible for supervising offenders on community supervision. They are to evaluate each offender’s needs and prepare a supervision plan, enforce any conditions of release, monitor offender behavior, and report violations to the courts. According to AOUSC officials, the higher the perceived risk to the community, the more intensive the supervision, including more frequent contacts with the offender. Further, AOUSC has also indicated that risk is associated with several factors. These factors include the extent to which offenders had serious criminal histories, had special conditions imposed on their supervision, or had violated the terms of their supervision. As noted earlier, AOUSC also believes that postprison offenders generally require more intensive supervision because these risk factors are more prevalent among this population. Some offenders under community supervision may have special conditions placed on them. For example, offenders may be placed on home confinement with or without electronic monitoring; be required to participate in drug, alcohol, or mental health treatment or counseling programs; be required to provide community service; or receive any combination of these conditions. These special conditions may be imposed by the judge at sentencing, or the probation officer may determine that such special conditions are required when preparing the supervision plan or when monitoring the offender’s behavior while on community supervision. If the probation officer determines that such conditions are necessary, the probation officer may petition the court to impose special conditions during the course of the offender’s supervision. According to AOUSC, offenders are removed from supervision because they violate the terms of their supervision or their term (1) expires, (2) terminates early, or (3) terminates for various noncriminal-related reasons, such as death or medical conditions. AOUSC classifies violations of supervision as technical, minor, or major. A technical violation is a violation of the conditions of supervision other than the conviction for a new offense. A minor violation is a conviction for a minor offense, such as disorderly conduct or drunken driving, for which the sentence is imprisonment for 90 days or less, probation for 1 year or less, or a fine. A major violation is the involvement in or conviction for a new major offense, including absconding from custody, having been arrested on another charge, or convicted and sentenced to more than 90 days of imprisonment or more than 1 year of probation. Offenders who violate their release conditions may be imprisoned, particularly if they have been convicted of a new offense, or may be sanctioned in other ways, such as having more restrictive conditions placed on their release. Violations generally create additional work for probation officers. First, when an offender violates one or more of his or her release conditions, the probation officer may petition the court to impose more restrictive release conditions, such as more frequent drug testing, which the probation officer must monitor. The probation officer may, at his or her option, choose to file a violation report with the court and petition the court to have the violator removed from community supervision and incarcerated. If the officer chooses to petition the court for removal (through the local U.S. Attorney’s office), the officer must prepare a violation report and usually must appear at a court hearing to consider the probation officer’s request. Although the total federal population on community supervision grew only 10 percent from fiscal years 1990 through 1996 (compared to a 63 percent growth in the federal prison population), two noteworthy changes occurred in that population, both caused by the implementation of the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984. First, the percentage of offenders sentenced directly to community supervision (probation) decreased, and the percentage of offenders sentenced to prison terms with required supervised release increased. Second, the percentage of offenders released from prison to parole also decreased, reflecting the decrease in the number of offenders who were sentenced under the preguidelines system. BOP estimates project that these trends will continue and that a larger proportion of offenders who could pose a higher risk of recidivism are scheduled to be released to community supervision over the next 5 years. As shown in figure 1, during fiscal years 1990 through 1996, the total federal population under community supervision grew by about 10 percent, from 80,592 to 88,966. During this period, the probation population decreased by about 35 percent; the parole population declined about 59 percent; and the supervised release population increased about 648 percent. Overall, the parole and supervised release—i.e., postprison—population rose 94 percent in the period. Additionally, as figure 2 shows, the distribution of this population for the three major types of supervision—probation, parole, and supervised release—changed considerably. Despite the growth in the community supervision population, figure 3 shows that the distribution of offenders on supervision for the major crime types—violent, white collar, drugs, and all other—did not change significantly. Between fiscal years 1992 and 1996, the largest group of convicted offenders on supervision were drug offenders. These offenders increased moderately from about 32 percent of the total supervision population in fiscal year 1992 to over 38 percent in fiscal year 1996. Offenders convicted of white collar crimes remained relatively unchanged at between 27 and 28 percent of the supervision population. Together, offenders in these two crime categories accounted for more than 60 percent of all offenders on supervision for each year during this period. BOP provided us with estimates of the number of offenders serving prison terms as of September 30, 1996, who are scheduled to be released from prison to community supervision between fiscal years 1997 and 2001. These estimates include those offenders sentenced prior to the sentencing guidelines who are scheduled to enter the parole program and those offenders who were sentenced under the sentencing guidelines and are to enter the supervised release program. BOP provided its estimates of release by the major offense category for which the offender was originally convicted and sentenced—drugs, violent, homicide, white collar, and all others. As shown in table 1, BOP estimates that the number of offenders released on parole will continue to decline, while the number of offenders released to the supervised release program will continue to increase. In fiscal years 1997 through 2001, BOP expects that about 55,700 of the offenders who were inmates as of September 30, 1996, will be released to a term of supervised release and about 5,200 released on parole. Over 70 percent of these approximately 61,000 offenders were convicted of violent or drug-related crimes. As previously noted, AOUSC has indicated that workload can be affected by the extent to which offenders had serious criminal histories. A 1993 BOP report on a sample of inmates released from BOP prisons suggests that an offender’s criminal history score is related to the risk of recidivism. The higher the criminal history category the greater the risk of recidivism. Criminal history is also one of the variables in the risk-assessment scale probation officers use to determine the level of supervision an offender on community supervision may require. The inmates released from BOP prisons in fiscal years 1997 through 2001 may include a greater number of higher risk offenders than the population released through fiscal year 1996. Since the sentencing guidelines apply to all offenses committed on or after November 1, 1987, only a very small percentage of offenders have been sentenced under the preguidelines system in the 1990s. Offenders sentenced under the preguidelines system may apply for release on parole after serving one-third of their sentence. Thus, offenders remaining in prison in fiscal year 1996 or later under the preguidelines system are likely to be those who have received long sentences, which are usually associated with more serious crimes; have been denied parole because of behavioral problems in prison that may heighten the risk they pose to the community once released; or both. According to AOUSC officials, such offenders may pose a higher risk of recidivism than offenders with shorter sentences who were released after serving one-third of their sentences. Offenders sentenced under the guidelines and released after fiscal year 1996 are likely to include more offenders with extensive criminal histories who have received longer sentences and who thus may pose a higher risk of recidivism than those released before fiscal year 1996. Under the guidelines, offenders are assigned a criminal history category based on the extent of their prior criminal behavior. The categories range from I, for those with virtually no prior criminal history, to VI, for those with the most serious criminal history.