PAROLE HISTORICAL ROOTS
Parole comes from the French word parole, referring to "word" as in giving one's
word of honor or promise. It has come to mean an inmate's promise to conduct him or
herself in a law-abiding manner and according to certain rules in exchange for
release. In penal philosophy, parole is part of the general 19th-century trend in
criminology from punishment to reformation. Chief credit for developing the early
parole system is usually given to Alexander Maconochie, who was in charge of the
English penal colony at Norfolk Island, 1,000 miles off the coast of Australia, and
to Sir Walter Crofton, who directed Ireland's prisons (Cromwell and del Carmen
1999).
Maconochie criticized definite prison terms and developed a system of rewards for
good conduct, labor and study. Through a classification procedure he called the
mark system, prisoners could progress through stages of increasing responsibility
and ultimately gain freedom. In 1840, he was given an opportunity to apply these
principles as superintendent of the Norfolk Island penal settlement in the South
Pacific. Under his direction, task accomplishment, not time served, was the
criterion for release. Marks of commendation were given to prisoners who performed
their tasks well, and they were released from the penal colony as they demonstrated
willingness to accept society's rules. Returning to England in 1844 to campaign for
penal reform, Maconochie tried to implement his reforms when he was appointed
governor of the new Birmingham Prison in 1849. However, he was unable to institute
his reforms there because he was dismissed from his position in 1851 on the grounds
that his methods were too lenient (Clear and Cole 1997).
Walter Crofton attempted to implement Maconichie's mark system when he became the
administrator of the Irish Prison System in 1854. Crofton felt that prison programs
should be directed more toward reformation, and that "tickets-of-leave" should be
awarded to prisoners who had shown definitive achievement and positive attitude
change. After a period of strict imprisonment, Crofton began transferring offenders
to "intermediate prisons" where they could accumulate marks based on work
performance, behavior and educational improvement. Eventually they would be given
tickets-of-leave and released on parole supervision. Parolees were required to
submit monthly reports to the police, and a police inspector helped them find jobs
and generally oversaw their activities. The concepts of intermediate prisons,
assistance and supervision after release were Crofton's contributions to the modern
system of parole (Clear and Cole 1997).
By 1865, American penal reformers were well aware of the reforms achieved in the
European prison systems, particularly in the Irish system. At the Cincinnati
meeting of the National Prison Association in 1870, a paper by Crofton was read,
and specific references to the Irish system were incorporated into the Declaration
of Principles, along with other such reforms as indeterminate sentencing and
classification for release based on a mark system. Because of Crofton's experiment,
many Americans referred to parole as the Irish system (Walker 1998).
Zebulon Brockway, a Michigan penologist, is given credit for implementing the first
parole system in the U.S. He proposed a two-pronged strategy for managing prison
populations and preparing inmates for release: indeterminate sentencing coupled
with parole supervision. He was given a chance to put his proposal into practice in
1876 when he was appointed superintendent at a new youth reformatory, the Elmira
Reformatory in New York. He instituted a system of indeterminacy and parole
release, and is commonly credited as the father of both in the United States. His
ideas reflected the tenor of the times - a belief that criminals could be reformed,
and that every prisoner's treatment should be individualized.
On being admitted to Elmira, each inmate (males between the ages of sixteen and
thirty) was placed in the second grade of classification. Six months of good
conduct meant promotion to the first grade - misbehavior could result in being
placed in the third grade, from which the inmate would have to work his way back
up. Continued good behavior in the first grade resulted in release. Paroled inmates
remained under the jurisdiction of authorities for an additional six months, during
which the parolee was required to report on the first day of every month to his
appointed volunteer guardian (from which parole officers evolved) and provide an
account of his situation and conduct (Abadinsky 1997). Written reports became
required and were submitted to the institute after being signed by the parolee's
employer and guardian.
Indeterminate sentencing and parole spread rapidly through the United States. In
1907, New York became the first state to formally adopt all the components of a
parole system: indeterminate sentences, a system for granting release, post-release
supervision and specific criteria for parole violation. By 1927, only three states
(Florida, Mississippi and Virginia) were without a parole system, and by 1942, all
states and the federal government had such systems (Clear and Cole 1997).
