HOME / DONATE / ONE LEVEL UP / ABOUT NCPA / CONTACT
Using The Private Sector To Deter Crime
Privatizing the Probation and Parole Systems
In mid-1991, 2.7 million people in the United States were on probation and 531,000 on parole.87 Half of all sentences for convicted felons are probated. Further, the system releases more than 99 percent of prisoners from prison to serve the remainder of their sentence outside prison walls under public parole supervision. To say that there are problems with both the probation and parole systems is putting it mildly. A large amount of crime is committed by people on probation or parole. Some of the crimes are brutal and highly publicized. For example:- Kenneth McDuff, a rapist and multiple killer from Texas whose death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment, was paroled - and shortly raped and killed another woman.
- A California parolee abducted and killed 12-year-old Polly Klaas in a case that claimed national attention.
- One of the killers of basketball star Michael Jordan’s father was out of prison on parole; the other was under indictment.
But the notorious cases are only the tip of the iceberg. Thirty-eight percent of persons arrested for felonies are under some sort of criminal justice supervision - either probation, parole or pretrial release.88 Probation workers have more cases than they can effectively handle, and in the face of shortages of prison capacity parole boards are not as selective about whom to parole as they once were.
We can put the competitive market mechanism to work on this problem. Privatizing the probation and parole systems could quickly become one of the most important and most effective private methods of crime deterrence.89 The commercial bail system used for criminal defendants can be adapted for convicts probated or paroled, both to make the probation and parole systems function better and to reduce costs to the taxpayer. "Thirty-eight percent of persons arrested for felonies are already under some sort of criminal justice supervision."
Using the Commercial Bail System for Probation and Parole.
Prisoners eligible for probation and parole should be required to post a financial bond against specified violations of the terms of their probation or parole (e.g., reporting regularly to their bondsman, submitting to drug tests, etc.). The amount should be set by the courts or parole boards based on the criminal’s history and prospects for a productive, noncriminal life. A typical bond might be $10,000. As with bail bonds currently, many criminals would have to seek the help of family and friends in order to acquire the cosigners and wherewithal to pay the bondsman’s fee and receive probation or parole. An important source of funds for parolees could be wages earned while in prison. But if no intimate of the criminal nor any private bondsman cared enough to risk their own money on the probationer or parolee, why should the general public risk that person on the streets? Privatizing the probation and parole systems provides a market mechanism for deciding whom to release on probation or parole and whom to continue incarcerating.There would be no cost to the taxpayers. A flat fee of, say, $500 per year per probationer or parolee for supervision and processing by private bondsmen should be paid privately by the probationer or parolee. For this there is ample precedent: over half the states already allow local probation departments to collect fees from probationers.90 Persons violating the terms of their probation or parole would forfeit their bond, generating revenues for the criminal justice system, victim compensation and other uses. "Why not let private bail bondsmen run the parole system?"
Advantages of Private Bonding.
This voluntary, privately financed market would be a tremendous help to parole boards and courts in sorting out promising parolees from the unpromising. A private bonding system would reduce, if not eliminate, the need for probation and parole officers on the public payroll. At the same time, with considerable sums of their own money at risk, bondsmen would supervise their charges closely and the fugitive rate would be low.Pursuit of those who violate probation or parole would be more effective because, unlike police, bounty hunters have every financial incentive to recover fugitives, and they can go to any jurisdiction and use any means within the boundaries of the law to apprehend a fugitive. Privatizing the entire probation and parole system would not only save taxpayers money but would also result in a far more effective system than the one we now have. Crime would plummet.