In the last decade, there has been considerable and warranted attention on the number of people incarcerated in the U.S. As such, it has become increasingly important to better understand how the community supervision system—originally designed to offer social assistance and rehabilitation and keep people out of prison—impacts prison populations nationwide.
In August 2018, in partnership with the Correctional Leaders Association and Arnold Ventures, The Council of State Governments (CSG) Justice Center launched a survey of corrections departments in all 50 states to better understand the impact of community supervision violations on prison populations. The resulting report, Confined and Costly: How Supervision Violations Are Filling Prisons and Burdening Budgets, was the first of its kind to provide a detailed examination of the prevalence of supervision violations within state prison admissions and populations for nearly every state. At the time, the groundbreaking study found that probation and parole violations made up as much as 45 percent of state prison admissions nationwide, with wide variation across states.
Since then, the CSG Justice Center has continued to examine this data, and subsequent reports have built on that original research study by adding additional data collection periods spanning 2018 to 2023.
Among other changes, the country experienced a shrinking of the prison system due to efforts to reduce prison populations during the first years of the COVID-19 pandemic. Released in 2021, More Community, Less Confinement: A State-by-State Analysis on How Supervision Violations Impacted Prison Populations During the Pandemic, showed how incarceration for supervision violations dropped in 2020 and pointed to some states’ progress as a way forward.
Despite changes made during the height of the pandemic, however, the proportion of people in the prison system due to community supervision violations has remained relatively consistent. Released in 2024, the CSG Justice Center’s third report on this data, and its accompanying webtool, showed that approximately 42 percent of all prison admissions in 2021 were people who violated the terms of their parole or probation sentences. One in 5 people in prison in 2021 were also incarcerated because they violated the terms of their supervision.
View the previous reports below:
Confined and Costly | 2019
Released in 2019, this report was based on the first-ever survey of corrections departments in all 50 states to better understand the impact of community supervision violations on prison populations. The analysis revealed a startling reality: 45 percent of state prison admissions nationwide were due to violations of probation or parole, with technical violations—such as missing appointments—accounting for nearly one fourth of all state prison admissions. View the report.
More Community, Less Confinement | 2021
Released in 2021, this report built on Confined and Costly (2019) and showed that the state prison populations shrank by an unprecedented 14 percent during 2020. Notably, the data revealed that the population decline in state prisons was primarily driven by a drop in the number of people being admitted to prisons. One-third of the drop in state prison populations was due to fewer people in custody for supervision violations. However, people admitted for supervision violations remained a large portion of prison admissions, still accounting for 42 percent of prison admissions nationwide. View the report.
Supervision Violations and Their Impact on Incarceration | 2024
Released in 2024, this report and webtool featured data from 2018 to 2021 and highlighted some continued good news: Incarceration for supervision violations nationwide had declined since the CSG Justice Center’s original report, with some states seeing up to 50 percent reductions. However, this report revealed wide variation among the states, with some states experiencing increases up to 19 percent, and incarcerations due to violations still resulting in high financial costs to states. View the report.
For more detailed information about the analysis conducted for this project, view the Technical Analysis of Community Supervision Data and the Examination of Racial Disparities in Parole Revocations.