PROBATION AND PAROLE POPULATIONS REACH NEW HIGHS
U.S. Department of Justice
ADVANCE FOR RELEASE AT 5 P.M. EST
BJS SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 1994
202-307-0784
PROBATION AND PAROLE POPULATIONS REACH NEW
HIGHS
.WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Almost 5 million Americans--or one in
39 adults--were under some form of correctional control in 1993,
according to the Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice
Statistics (BJS). More than two-thirds of these people were being
super
vised in the community on probation or parole. The others were
in jail or prison.
.The number of adults under correctional supervision-- incarcerated
or in the community--reached a new high of 4.8 million last
year--a 2.5 percent increase over 1992. This represents a 165
percent increase since 1980.
.BJS said 2.8 million adults were on probation and 671,000 were
on parole in state and federal jurisdictions in 1993. An estimated
3.2 percent of all U.S. adult men in 1993 and 0.6 percent of adult
women were under such supervision.
.
.The percentage distribution of the total corrections population in
1993 was:
...Community supervision 72%
... Probation.. 58
... Parole.. 14
...Confinement.. 28%
... Jail... 9
... Prison.. 19
.On any given day last year an estimated one in every 138 adult
women and one in every 22 adult men were under the care,
custody or control of a corrections agency. The size of the
offender population that is supervised in the community has
increased at
almost the same rate as prison and jail populations. Since 1980,
probation and parole populations have grown by 163 percent, jails
and prisons by 172 percent.
.Texas had the largest number of adults on probation--more than
378,000--and also the largest number on parole--more than
116,000. At the end of last year seven other states--California,
Florida, New York, Georgia, Michigan, Washington and New
Jersey-- h
ad more than 100,000 people on probation.
.Three states reported increases of at least 20 percent in their
parole populations during the year: Vermont (33.4 percent),
Connecticut (29.2 percent) and Florida (23.6 percent). On the
other hand, Washington, Delaware, Mississippi and North Dakota
redu
ced their parole populations by at least 15 percent.
.These data were collected and analyzed by BJS statisticians
Darrell Gilliard and Allen Beck.
.Other information about BJS and its publications may be obtained
from the BJS Clearinghouse, Box 179, Annapolis Junction,
Maryland 20701-0179. The telephone number is 1-800-732-3277.
Fax orders to 410-792-4358.
.Data from the tables from this news release are available to the
media in spreadsheet files on 5 1/4" and 3 1/2" diskettes by calling
(202) 307-0784.
# # #
94-91
After hours contact: Stu Smith 301-983-9354National Institute of
Justice Update
Jeremy Travis, Director
September 1994
PREVENTING INTERPERSONAL VIOLENCE AMONG
YOUTHS
Homicide is the 11th leading cause of death in the
United States and is increasingly prevalent among
youths; between 1980 and 1989, more than 11,000
persons died as a result of homicides committed by
high school-aged youths who used a weapon of some
type.
Several prevention programs have been started
during the past decade to teach anger management
and conflict resolution skills to youths; other
programs increase contact between youths and
appropriate role models.
The Issues and Practices report Preventing
Interpersonal Violence Among Youth: An Introduction
to School, Community, and Mass Media Strategies
describes promising programs now in operation and
recommends ways police and other criminal justice
professionals can get involved in more broad-based
violence prevention.
Understanding violent behavior
In 1992 almost half of all murder victims were
either related to (12 percent) or acquainted with
(35 percent) their assailants, and 29 percent of
all murders were the result of an argument. Most
were committed impulsively, and about half of all
perpetrators or victims had consumed alcohol before
the homicide.
The dimensions of the violence problem, especially
for young people, have made the case for viewing
violence from a public health perspective as well
as the criminal justice vantage point. While
criminal justice professionals approach violence in
terms of investigation, arrest, prosecution, and
conviction, public health specialists approach
health problems in terms of the interaction between
the host, the agent, and the environment.
The host is a person whose behavior determines or
contributes to a public health problem. Males,
especially adolescents and young adults, are at
greatest risk for assaultive violence, believing
that they need to prove their manhood.
By environment, public health specialists mean the
broad social, cultural, institutional, and physical
forces that contribute to a public health problem.
Many translate into an inability by families and
communities to transmit positive values to young
people, communicate a sense of hope about the
future, or teach nonviolent conflict resolution
skills.
The public health focus has brought renewed
attention to the weaponry of violence: the agent.
Thus there have been many calls to severely
restrict the sales of firearms and, at the very
least, to minimize young people's ready access to
weapons.
Following are descriptions of two violence
prevention programs based on the premise that
violence is a learned behavior. They are rooted in
the belief that children must be taught nonviolent
means of resolving conflict.
Resolving Conflict Creatively Program (RCCP)
RCCP is a school-based conflict resolution and
mediation program sponsored by the New York City
Public Schools and Educators for Social
Responsibility-Metro (ESR), a nonprofit
organization. Begun in 1985, this K-12 program is
now in place in 180 elementary, junior high, and
high schools in the city, with 3,000 teachers and
70,000 students participating.
RCCP's year-long curriculums concentrate on active
listening, assertiveness (as opposed to
aggressiveness or passivity), expression of
feelings, perspective-taking, cooperation, and
negotiation. Teachers are encouraged to do at least
one "peace lesson" a week, to use "teachable
moments" that arise because of what's happening in
the classroom or the world at large, and to infuse
conflict resolution lessons into the regular
academic program. By creating a "peaceable
school," RCCP teachers strive to give their
students a new image of what their world can be.
The teachers, too, must learn a new set of skills
for resolving conflict and adopt a new style of
classroom management, sharing power with students
so they can learn how to deal with their own
disputes.
RCCP recently began a pilot program for parents;
two or three parents per school are trained to lead
workshops for other parents on intergroup
relations, family communication, and conflict
resolution. To date nearly 300 parents have
received training.
Violence Prevention Project (VPP)
VPP is a community-based outreach and education
project run by Boston's Department of Health and
Hospitals as part of its Health Promotion Program
for Urban Youth. Begun in 1986 as a 3-year pilot
program in two neighborhoods, Roxbury and South
Boston, the project has been expanded as an
integral part of the mayor's citywide Safe
Neighborhoods Plan.
VPP began with development of the Violence
Prevention Curriculum for Adolescents, developed by
Dr. Deborah Prothrow-Stith. VPP teaches staff from
community-based youth agencies how to use lessons
from the high school curriculum in their own
violence prevention programs.
VPP's community education program was coupled with
a mass media campaign to raise public awareness of
adolescent violence. VPP's peer leadership program
uses a small group of youth leaders who do conflict
re-solution and violence prevention work among
their peers.
VPP is now organizing a coalition of service
providers, teachers and school administrators,
juvenile justice officials, parents, and other
community residents. In VPP's view, such coalitions
are more likely to start their own violence
prevention activities, a key objective of the
project.
Mass media strategies
The report also addresses ways the media can be
used as an adjunct to school and community programs
to prevent violence. Three such campaigns are "Walk
Away From Violence," sponsored by the Wayne County,
Michigan, Department of Public Health; "Stop the
Violence," cosponsored by Jive Records and the
National Urban League; and "Family Violence:
Breaking the Chain," developed and broadcast by
WBZ-TV in Boston.
Mass media campaigns can be used to educate the
public about violence, keep it at the top of the
public agenda, inform citizens about their
community's attack on the problem and inspire their
participation, and build support for changes in
institutional arrangements, public policy, or law.
Preventing Interpersonal Violence Among Youth: An
Introduction to School, Community, and Mass Media
Strategies describes other conflict resolution
strategies, curriculums, professional training
programs, and parent training programs, as well as
providing coalition-building information. The
report can be obtained free from the National
Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS), Box
6000, Rockville, Maryland 20850 (800-851-3420).
Date Published: September 11, 1994