Parole, Success and Failure: A Comparative Study in Terms of Four Factors of Two Groups of Twelve Each of Male Felons With Indeterminate Sentences Who Were Paroled From New York State Prisons to the New York City Area During the Years 1940 to 1963

Abe Simon, Fordham University

Abstract

Sooner or later the various persons involved in the treatment, care and custody of the criminal ask themselves and then search the field of social science for answers to the causes of criminal behavior. Specifically, in the area of corrections that concerns parole, the persons responsible for the decision-making as to whether to place an individual on parole will wonder about the validity and reliability of his judgement. It is when the first parolee he has judged as able to take his place once more in the community, appears in the newspaper headlines for turning on and doing violence to someone or his property in that community, that the Parole Commissioner or parole officer seeks methods to refine or confirm his choice of those best suited to be placed on parole. As a parole officer for many years with the New York State Division of Parole it was this experience which caused me to seek those factors in a parolee‘s life history that would serve as possible clues to his delinquent behavior and those social factors which would have predictive value in determining his success or failure on parole. Each year a substantial number of parolees released from New York State correctional institutions violate the conditions of their parole and many of them are returned as parole violators to the same institutions for further correctional custody and treatment. This results in at least a temporary setback in the rehabilitation of the individual parolee and in additional costs to the State in maintaining parole violators in correctional institutions, to say nothing of the harm they have done to the community and individuals in that community.

Subject Area

Psychology|Mental health

Recommended Citation

Simon, Abe, "Parole, Success and Failure: A Comparative Study in Terms of Four Factors of Two Groups of Twelve Each of Male Felons With Indeterminate Sentences Who Were Paroled From New York State Prisons to the New York City Area During the Years 1940 to 1963" (1965). ETD Collection for Fordham University. AAI30308728.
https://research.library.fordham.edu/dissertations/AAI30308728

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