PAROLE ISSUES

E-mail us with any questions! A person sentenced to state prison in the State of California can do his/her time in one of two ways. Incarcerated or on parole. Parole is that period of time between one's release from state prison and the time their sentence is finished. California has the second largest parole population in the country second only to Texas. California has about 117,000 people on parole and about 17,000 of them are PALS ( Parolees At Large ). The recitivision or return to prison rate in California is around 83%. That means that about 83% of people that go to prison once go back for a second trip.

The shortest amount of time a person can be on parole is one year. The longest amount of time is life and the average is three years. Parole is mandatory unless specified by the court. Refer to penal code section 3000. The period of time spent on parole will be supervised by a Parole Agent. For conditions of parole see " Training Articles " on this web page. The Parole Agent has three basic types of case loads. High Control - Control Service - Minimum Supervision. About 80 % of parolees come out of prison to Control Service. Before being released from prison, the parolee signs the conditions of parole form. This form states his conditions of parole and he/she is agreeing to abide by these conditions. If he/she does not, then the state can revoke the parole status and return the parolee to custody.

Parole vs Probation: There are a few differences between parole and probation. Parole is mandatory, probation is voluntary. One is placed on parole by the CDC and placed on probation by the court. Parole searches , for the most part, must be done with some type or degree of reasonableness but probation searches can be done at anytime without reasonable cause. As of 1-1-97, anyone who commits a crime after this date that results in a prison sentence maybe searched at any time without reasonable cause. This new law, AB 2284, brings parole searches in line with probation. But it only applies for crimes after 1-1-97. It is not retroactive.