AN EASY RIDE FOR FELONS ON PROBATION

PHILADELPHIA -- The violent crime rate in the United States has fallen by
about a third since 1993, but it could fall further if we took better
control of the millions of criminals who are on probation rather than in
prison or jail. A growing body of evidence is showing that the "broken
windows" strategy used effectively by police departments -- taking petty
crimes seriously as a way to establish a low tolerance for lawbreaking at
every level -- can be adapted to the treatment of people on probation. 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.
Others walk away: in 1990, with a probation population a third smaller than
what we have now, probation agencies had lost track of a quarter-million
"absconders" -- people still under sentence but not reporting in. 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. And though courts routinely make drug treatment a condition
of probation (since an estimated 80 percent of probationers have serious
substance abuse problems), fewer than 40 percent of all probationers
nationwide actually participate in drug treatment during their sentences.

We spend only about $200 a year per probationer, and we get what we pay
for. Strapped for time and overburdened by their caseloads, probation
officers too often resort to "fortress probation," shuffling paperwork and
rarely leaving their offices or having face-to-face contact with the
offenders they supposedly supervise. One recent study found that in 1998
fewer than one in 20 people who worked for probation agencies ever actually
spent time supervising felony probationers on the streets.

A lax attitude toward enforcement pervades the system, and probationers
have come to expect two or more "free ones" when it comes to drugs in urine
samples, electronic monitoring violations, or failure to comply with a wide
variety of conditions. The Manhattan Institute recently released a report
by the Reinventing Probation Council, a group of probation officials from
across the country, which argues that the response to violations should be
graduated sanctions, like curfews or house arrest, more intensive
supervision or monitoring, mandatory drug treatment, a brief period of
confinement in jail, or placement in a close-watch residential facility. As
the report stresses, firsthand knowledge of an offender's family and
neighborhood are critical elements of effective supervision. Probation
supervision must cease to be a 9-to-5 occupation. It must be delivered at
nights, on weekends and on holidays.

Such reforms will not be easy. Adult probation caseloads have soared to
more than 500 per officer in many cities. Some 60 percent of Los Angeles
probationers, for example, are tracked solely by computer. Many probation
agencies, monitoring both adult and juvenile offenders, lack even basic
data like addresses and phone numbers.

Where strict probation has been tried, however, the results are
encouraging. After Williamson County, Tex., probation officers decided to
crack down on absconders, they arrested over 1,000 probation violators and
collected more than $65,000 in unpaid penalties.

In Boston, where probation officers formed partnerships with police and
clergy to reduce juvenile violence, more probationers than ever got
face-to-face visits, drug treatment, family counseling, and help finding
jobs. During the first year of the effort, the number of people arrested
for violating probation quadrupled. Shortly afterward, the city went for
more than two years without a single gun-related juvenile homicide.

In Philadelphia, officials discovered that a quarter of the murders in the
city's most violent police district were committed by felons on probation.
Police, prosecutors, clergy and outreach workers pooled information about
young probationers in this district identified as being at extreme risk of
killing or being killed. The police carefully monitored the group, and
community leaders offered counseling. A year later, while youth violence
remained high elsewhere in the city, the homicide rate had plummeted in the
district, and none of the targeted young people had lost their lives or
taken those of others.

After the public learned that a suspect in the murders of five people at a
Wendy's restaurant in Flushing, Queens, last May had previously been
convicted of armed robbery and sentenced to probation, there were calls to
abolish probation. But that would be a profoundly unwise and unworkable
response, tantamount to doubling the prison population overnight. We would
do better to give probation departments across the country the
administrative tools and financial support they need to do their
public-safety jobs right.

John J. Dilulio Jr. is senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and
professor of politics at the University of Pennsylvania. Joseph P. Tierney
is vice president at Public/Private Ventures, a social and urban policy
research group.