Parole and prisoner release: Exploring rationalities across time and place
| Author | Nicola Carr,Ester Blay |
| Published date | 01 December 2019 |
| Date | 01 December 2019 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/2066220319895825 |
| Subject Matter | Editorial |
https://doi.org/10.1177/2066220319895825
European Journal of Probation
2019, Vol. 11(3) 119 –123
© The Author(s) 2019
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DOI: 10.1177/2066220319895825
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Parole and prisoner release:
Exploring rationalities
across time and place
This special issue focusses on prisoner release and parole in different European contexts.
The starting point for looking at this topic was our involvement in the European Society
of Criminology’s Working Group on Community Sanctions and Measures and the COST
Action on Offender Supervision in Europe,1 which explored the expanding use of com-
munity sanctions and measures across a number of European countries. These networks
and subsequent publications (see e.g. Boone and Maguire, 2017; McNeill and Beyens,
2013; Robinson and McNeill, 2016), have drawn attention to what was a previously rela-
tively neglected aspect of penality – sanctions imposed and served in the community.
Part of the reason that community sanctions and measures have received less attention is
because penological scholarship has tended to focus more closely on the prison, particu-
larly in light of increases in prison populations and the attendant issues that arise from
this (e.g. questions regarding utility, effectiveness and concerns regarding human rights,
to name just a few). Of course, community sanctions and measures also encompass the
requirements and conditions that are imposed upon people when they are released from
prison. Therefore, a rise in prison numbers also leads to an expanded population of peo-
ple subsequently made subject to supervision in the community, and this symbiotic rela-
tionship (or in some instances a feedback loop), is further evidenced by the return of
people to prison for breaching the conditions of their release.
Jonathan Simon’s (1993) book Poor Discipline: Parole and the Social Control of the
Underclass 1890–1990, exploring the history of parole in California over the course of a
century has been another important starting point. In this influential work, Simon (1993)
traces the changing rationalities and techniques deployed to justify and govern prisoner
release over time and critically relates these to the wider political economy, the changing
role of the state and the increased salience directed towards governance through crime.
Simon argues that given its juncture at the nexus between prison and the community, the
study of parole provides a unique vantage point from which to explore wider penality.
We have therefore asked the contributors to the special issue to consider these wider
themes in their analysis.
Any explorations of the processes of prisoner release and parole needs to first define
what we mean by these terms. The word ‘parole’ has entered common parlance, but its
precise meaning and its use in comparative analysis and academic literature varies
(Padfield et al., 2012; van Zyl Smit and Corda, 2017). ‘Parole’ is typically taken to mean
the decision made regarding the point at which a prisoner is released prior to their maxi-
mum sentence and becomes subject to some form of conditionality. In some instances,
the ‘decision’ to release a prisoner is ‘automatic’, while in others it is ‘discretionary’.
895825EJP0010.1177/2066220319895825European Journal of ProbationEditorial
2019
Editorial
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