Launching EXiT: Executives Transforming Probation and Parole

Justice Lab’s Probation and Parole Reform Project launched EXiT: Executives Transforming Probation and Parole, a group of current and former probation and parole executives who are working to reduce the number of people under supervision, reduce revocations and returns to prison for minor misbehavior, and make community supervision fairer, more helpful, and more reintegrative.

The group penned a Statement on the Future of Probation and Parole in the United States, which lays out the challenges in probation and parole today, principles for the field, and a call to action. EXiT will bring to bear the experience of system executives who have led changes within their own agencies to address challenges facing probation and parole and believe the field should go further toward transformation. There are over 4 million people on probation or parole in the U.S., more than double the number of people incarcerated, and nearly half (45 percent) of people entering prisons in 2017 were under community supervision immediately prior to their incarceration, so changes in this segment of the criminal justice system can have wide-reaching effects.