Contemporizing the Social Organization of Parole: A Critical Assessment

In most states for most kinds of sentenced individuals, parole boards decide the ultimate amount of time served. Parole exists as an agency within a larger system of criminal justice. Its early 19th century roots were embedded in the same rehabilitative ideal that led to the penitentiary as place to do penitence, and the juvenile court as the center of a state's juvenile justice system. But with late 20th century critiques of the rehabilitative ideal, parole came out of favor and state discretionary release practices became less focused on its initial rehabilitative objectives. We evaluate the practice of discretionary release decisions by highlighting the case of juvenile lifers. We draw on organizational theory to relate how a state's discretionary release practices are tightly coupled to the severity of the offense. We illustrate the decision-making by detailing expectations for a parole candidate's expression of remorse, responsibility, and redemption (the 3Rs). For a segment of juvenile lifers, parole boards act less as an autonomous decision-making unit and more on reproducing prior judicial sentencing decisions.