Sentencing of Technical and Low-Level Supervision Violations: An Analysis of Fixed Effects Across Federal Judicial Districts

• Author: Joseph A. DaGrossa
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/07340168221078341
• Published date: 01 June 2023
• Date: 01 June 2023
• Subject Matter: Articles

Sentencing of Technical and

Low-Level Supervision

Violations: An Analysis of Fixed

Effects Across Federal Judicial

Districts

Joseph A. DaGrossa

Abstract

A considerable amount of previous research has examined the iatrogenic effects of mass imprison-

ment. This work has often considered the fact that the sentencing of people for low-level supervi-

sion violations is a contributing factor to the prison population. Relatively little work, however, has

examined the factors which specif‌ically inf‌luence the sentencing of probation and parole violators

for technical and other low-level infractions. The present study analyzed over 44,000 cases of indi-

viduals who appeared in federal courts between 2013 and 2017 for relatively minor violations of

federal community-based supervision. Using multilevel analysis to account for the nested quality

of federal sentencing data, the study examined assorted individual-level legal and extra-legal effects

on various sentencing outcomes. Effects were found for gender, having admitted to supervision vio-

lations, and predicate offense of conviction. Implications are presented.

Keywords

community corrections, corrections, sentencing, courts/law, community-based corrections, corrections

Community-based corrections are a large part of the American correctional system. The 4.7 million

adults under probation or parole supervision today comprise 69% of the total adult correctional pop-

ulation in the United States (Kaeble & Bonczar, 2017).

A substantial number of prisoners in the United States are people who have become incarcerated

because they have had their terms of community-based supervision revoked and are (re)committed to

prison. Approximately one-half of all people admitted to American jails, and one-third of all those

admitted to prison each year, are there as the result of a revocation of community-based supervision

(Carson & Anderson, 2016).

Sociology, Anthropology, and Criminal Justice, Rutgers University Camden, Camden, New Jersey, United States

Corresponding Author:

Joseph A. DaGrossa, Sociology, Anthropology, and Criminal Justice, Rutgers University Camden, Camden, 405-7 Cooper

Street, New Jersey 08102-1519, United States.

Email: jdagrossa@verizon.net

Article

Criminal Justice Review

2023, Vol. 48(2) 187-202

© 2022 Georgia State University

Article reuse guidelines:

sagepub.com/journals-permissions

DOI: 10.1177/07340168221078341

journals.sagepub.com/home/cjr

Two broad types of violations may lead to the revocation of probation or parole supervision.

The f‌irst involves the commission of a new criminal offense as def‌ined by local, state, or federal

laws. The second involves technical violations of supervision. Technical violations, as def‌ined by

Seiter (2003), refer to non-criminal infractions of the rules of supervision which have been estab-

lished by the court, parole board, or other release-granting authority. Typical examples of such

acts of non-compliance are an excessive number of missed appointments with the probation

off‌icer, unauthorized association with other persons who have criminal records, failure to attend

treatment, or unauthorized travel outside the judicial district (Sieh, 2003). Many violations of

community-based supervision are of the technical variety. In a 2013 study of inmates released

from New Jersey state prison following placement in a halfway house, for instance, Hamilton and

Campbell found that 50% were recommitted within f‌ive years on the strength of technical violations

alone. Noteworthy, some research has found that parolees may engage in new crimes at signif‌icantly

lower rates than offenders released from prison without any parole supervision (Ostermann, 2013),

but are nonetheless at risk of being returned to prison on the basis of technical violations. A study

commissioned by the Pew Charitable Trusts in 2013, for example, found that paroled inmates in

New Jersey were less likely than “maxed-out”inmates (51% versus 65%) to be rearrested and

less likely to be convicted of a new crime (38% versus 55%) within three years of release.

However, over 20% of the parolees were eventually returned to prison on the strength of technical

violations alone. Taking into account technical violations, paroled offenders were just as likely as

maxed-out offenders to be recommitted to prison within three years of their release.

Petersilia and Turner (1993) have submitted that probation and parole off‌icials may be inclined to

seek revocation of supervision for offenders who are known to have committed technical violations

but no new crimes because they are relying on a ‘where there’s smoke there’sf‌ire’argument: offend-

ers who feel free to violate the technical conditions of supervision are also inclined to commit new

crimes, and revoking supervision for technical violations likely prevents the eventual commission of

additional crimes. Despite the intuitive appeal of this logic, however, there is evidence against it. In

1984, for example, off‌icials in the state of Washington developed new rules regarding the imposition

of supervision conditions. Rather than imposing a standard list of conditions on offenders placed on

probation, new sentencing guidelines instructed the courts to impose conditions only directly rele-

vant to the instant offense of conviction and the offender’s prior criminal record. The result was

that most offenders were only subjected to two or three probation conditions. The guidelines also

stipulated that any revocation resulting from technical violations of supervision could result in a

penalty of no more than 60 days in custody. Research conducted subsequent to the enactment of

the guidelines suggested that technical violations decreased as a result of the new rules, but arrest

rates for new criminal conduct remained roughly the same (Green, 1988). Petersilia and Turner

(1993) posit that if the assumption about the relationship between technical violations and new

crimes were true, arrest rates for new crimes should have risen following the implementation of

the guidelines, since fewer crimes would have been “preempted”by incarcerating technical violators.

The fact that arrest rates for new crimes did not increase suggests that technical non-compliance may

not in fact be a harbinger of future criminal activity.

More recently, using a sample of offenders released from prison in Washington State between

2001 and 2008, Drake and Aos (2012) determined that the risk for recidivism was not lowered

among those who were recommitted for technical violations. Relatedly, examining male inmates

committed to prison for parole violations, Orrick and Morris (2015) found that those imprisoned

for technical violations were less likely to engage in prison misconduct than those committed for

engaging in new crimes while under supervision.

There are several reasons why the practice of committing probationers/parolees to prison for low-

level violations (at seemingly little to no benef‌it to public safety) deserves consideration. For one,

there are f‌iscal concerns. The annual cost of incarcerating a person in federal prison exceeds

188 Criminal Justice Review 48(2)