Supervision Intensity and Parole Outcomes: A Competing Risks Approach to Criminal and Technical Parole Violations

Recent scholarship about parole supervision indicates that higher supervision intensity is associated with an increased risk of parole violations; however, parole violations can take many formssome minor and some seriousand theory suggests that supervision intensity might have differential effects depending upon the type of violation. The current study found that effects are strongest for absconding violations. Past sexual offending also triggers significant supervision effects for technical violations, drug use violations, and violent violations. The study concludes that parole violation patterns are influenced by parolee behaviors, the amount of attention the state is paying to those behaviors, and official markers of criminal dangerousness that are attached to particular parolees. (Publisher abstract modified)