Mass Supervision: Probation, Parole, and the Illusion of Safety and Freedom
With a foreword by Bruce Western
Named one of the Best Books of the Year by NPRThe most comprehensive critique of probation and parole--and a provocative and compelling argument for abolishing both--from the former Probation Commissioner of New York City
Imagine if probation didn't exist. And I came to you with
$80 million and 30,000 people the courts considered troubled and troubling. And
you could do anything you wanted with that money to make New York City
safer and help people turn their lives around. Would you go out and hire a thousand
civil service-protected bureaucrats to supervise people as they piss in a cup
once a week, and to tell them to go forth and sin no more?
--Vincent Schiraldi's Job Interview with NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg
We've heard a lot in recent years about the nearly 2.1 million people incarcerated in American prisons and jails. But what about the approximately 4 million more who are on probation and parole--monitored by the state at great expense and at risk of being sent to prison at the whim of a probation or parole officer for the least imaginable infraction? Vincent Schiraldi was New York City probation commissioner under Mayor Bloomberg, supervising a system charged with monitoring 30,000 people on a daily basis. In Mass Supervision, he combines firsthand experience with deep research on the inadequately explored practices of probation and parole, to illustrate how these forms of state supervision have strayed from their original goal of providing constructive and rehabilitative alternatives to prison. They have become instead, Schiraldi argues, a "recidivism trap" for people trying to lead productive lives in the wake of a criminal conviction. Schiraldi offers the first full and up-to-date account of these two key aspects of our criminal justice system, showing that these practices increase incarceration, have little impact on crime rates, and needlessly disrupt countless lives. Ultimately, he argues that they should be dramatically downsized or even abolished completely.
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Vincent Schiraldi is the founder of the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice and the Justice Policy Institute. He has served as director of juvenile corrections in Washington, DC, commissioner of the New York City Department of Probation, and commissioner of the New York City Department of Correction. He has been a senior research fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School and co-founded the Columbia University Justice Lab. He is currently secretary of the Maryland Department of Juvenile Services and has written extensively for outlets ranging from the New York Times to The Marshall Project. The author of Mass Supervision (The New Press), he lives just outside of Washington, DC.
Praise for Mass Supervision:
"This is a real moment for parole and probation in America. This book chronicles the rise of mass supervision and the birth of the movement to reform it. From the injustices I experienced on probation and the #FreeMeek movement that resulted in my release, to the experiences of millions of Americans who are tormented by the supervision-to-prison pipeline, to the many changes REFORM Alliance and others have already brought about, this book takes us from the creation of the system, through its transformations and reforms, and directs us to the hard work remaining to free men and women still unjustly trapped on supervision. Schiraldi captures how far we've come in the movement to fix parole and probation and reminds us how much more we can do if we stand together against injustice."
--Robert "Meek Mill" Williams, recording artist, entrepreneur, and co-founder of the REFORM Alliance "When I hired Vinny Schiraldi to run New York City's probation department, I wanted someone who would shake up a broken system; and that's exactly what we got. He played a critical role in helping our administration reduce both incarceration and crime to record lows, and the experiences and insights he shares in Mass Supervision hold lessons for the whole country."
--Michael Bloomberg, mayor of New York City (2000-2013) and founder of Bloomberg and Bloomberg Philanthropies
--Khalil Gibran Muhammad, professor at Harvard Kennedy School and the Radcliffe Institute "With Mass Supervision, Schiraldi asks us all to consider what it means to be on 'papers, ' that colloquial term for being under state supervision. Schiraldi knows what the rest of us don't about probation or parole--and in this book he reveals it: from its history to all its present disasters. But more than this, Schiraldi offers a pathway forward, to less supervision and more freedom and more safety. That's why this one matters."
--Reginald Dwayne Betts, founder and director, Freedom Reads, and author of Felon
"The iron grip of mass incarceration reaches far beyond the walls of American prisons and jails, and in Mass Supervision, Schiraldi spotlights poorly understood and operated systems of probation and parole. Schiraldi shines a light on how millions of Americans are surveilled and 'supervised' by the government in a way that neither respects their humanity nor leads to greater public safety. This paradigm-shifting look at an unexplored aspect of our criminal legal system is a must-read to make crucial changes in the name of justice."
--Piper Kerman, author of Orange Is the New Black "This is a masterful account of probation and parole by someone uniquely situated to write it. Schiraldi, recently New York City's Commissioner of Corrections, raises foundational questions--how fair are these systems, do they promote public safety--not as an academic exercise but from the perspective of a government official who actually ran them, a scholar determined to study them, and an advocate determined to change them. It should be required reading for everyone in the criminal legal system."
--Honorable Nancy Gertner, former U.S. district judge and senior lecturer, Harvard Law School "Mass Supervision is masterfully written and details the evolution of parole, probation, and its collateral consequences and deep racial inequality. Schiraldi uses research, practice, and personal experiences to engage the reader to explore the book's central questions--how has parole or probation made us safer or benefited those on supervision, their family and communities, or reduced the racial disparities that exist in our criminal legal system by providing diversion or early release from prison. Mass Supervision challenges us to step out of our role as advocates, researchers, legislators, parole or probation officers, correctional administrators, prosecutors, or judiciary officials and to embrace the facts of our history, and to be bold, intentional, and focused in order to eliminate the harm mass supervision inflicts on mankind and disproportionately Black and brown people and communities of color. Mass Supervision provide us an opportunity and road map to continue to reduce the use of parole and probation and eliminate its collateral consequences by ensuring whatever strategy (abolition or incremental) change our nation pursues, is shaped by the voices and communities of the people most impacted by the criminal legal system."
--Stanley Richards, deputy chief executive officer, The Fortune Society
"[A] disturbing analysis of the little-understood, long-calcified systems of probation and parole. . . . Schiraldi writes with compassion and an experienced eye. . . . An expertly developed contribution to progressive debates on civil liberties and imprisonment."
--Kirkus Reviews
