History of Parole

Origin of Parole

The English word parole is derived from the French parole

d’honneur, meaning “word of honor”. The French seem to prefer the term
conditional liberation to the one borrowed from their language. In 1791,
during the French Revolution, the Comte de Mirabeau (Honore-Gabriel
Rigueti) anticipated modern penal theories when he published a report
based on the idea of reformation, which emphasized the principles of
labor, segregation, rewards under a mark system, conditional liberation, and aid on discharge. Another
Frenchman, Bonneville de Marsangy, public prosecutor of Versailles, published a book in 1847 in
which he discussed conditional liberation, police supervision of discharged convicts, aid upon
discharge, and rehabilitation. This book was distributed by the government to the members of both
chambers of Parliament (Wines, 1919).

Parole as a practice originated almost simultaneously with three European prison

administrators: a Spaniard, Manuel Montesimos; a German, Georg Michael Obermaier; and an
Englishman, Alexander Maconochie.

● Manuel Montesimos

In 1835 Col. Manuel Montesimos was appointed governor of the prison at Valencia, Spain,
which held about 1,500 convicts. He organized the institution using military-type discipline, and he
encouraged prisoner vocational training and education. The novelty of his plan was there were
practically no officers to watch the prisoners, who nevertheless made few, if any, attempts to escape.
Each prisoner could earn a one-third reduction in the term of his sentence by good behavior and
positive accomplishments. The number of prisoner recommitments while Montesimos was governor
was significantly reduced. Despite all his efforts, the law that allowed this program was subsequently
repealed, and Montesimos ultimately resigned. Montesimos drew the following conclusions from his
experiment:

● Georg Michael Obermaier

When Georg Michael Obermaier became governor of a prison in Munich, Germany, in 1842, he
found approximately 700 rebellious prisoners being kept in order by more than 100 soldiers. In a short
time he gained the men’s confidence, removed their chains, discharged nearly all of their guards, and
appointed one of them superintendent of each of the industrial shops. His success in reforming
prisoners was so great that reportedly only 10 percent of prisoners relapsed into crime after their
discharge. He was aided by two favorable circumstances: Many of the men had no fixed term of
imprisonment, and discharged inmates were supervised by prison aid societies.

● Alexander Maconochie

Chief credit for developing early parole systems, however, goes to Alexander Maconochie, who
was in charge of the English penal colony on Norfolk Island.

MARKS SYSTEM

In 1837 Alexander Maconochie, a retired British naval captain and professor of

geography, proposed to the House of Commons a system whereby the duration of the sentence
 would be determined not by time but by the prisoner’s industry and
good conduct. He proposed a marks system by which “marks” or
credits would be credited daily to prisoners in accordance with their
behavior and the amount of labor they performed. As prisoners’
demonstrated evidence of good behavior and a good work ethic, their
freedom and privileges gradually increased. Marks were deducted for
negative behavior. Maconochie’s system allowed prisoners to move
from strict imprisonment, to labor in work gangs, through conditional
release around the island, and finally to complete restoration of liberty.

NORFOLK ISLAND

Maconochie was given the opportunity to test his mark system in 1840 when he was
appointed superintendent of the notorious penal colon on Norfolk Island, 1,000 miles off the
eastern coast of Australia. Norfolk Island was known to have 2, 000 of the most incorrigible
convicts; they had been sent there from other prisons in Britain and Ireland because they had
committed crimes of violence while incarcerated (a “supermax” of the 1800’s). Within a span of
four years, Maconochie’s system and humane treatment of the prisoners transformed their
horrific lives into a peaceful orderly existence. Maconochie discontinued flogging and chain
gangs and introduced adequate food, health care, disciplinary hearings and reading material.

Despite Maconochie’s successes, many influential colonists in Australia, who believed

that convicts should be kept in irons and flogged, saw Maconochie’s treatment of prisoners as
radical and lobbied the governor for Maconochie’s dismissal. The governor was torn between
his hope that Maconochie’s experiment would succeed and his fear of the political power of the
colonists who opposed the project. Maconochie was dismissed in 1844, and his experiment
came to an abrupt end. As free settlers in Australia increased in number, they protested the use
of the country as a dumping ground for prisoners. In 1867 transportation of prisoners from
England to Australia was terminated.

The years following saw an outbreak of crime and prison riots in England, which were
attributed to poor prison administration and the lack of supervision of the ticket-of-leave men.
The British public thus came to regard the ticket-of-leave system as a menace to public safety.
A royal commission was appointed to investigate both areas, and the report resulted in
policemen being given responsibility for supervising released prisoners. Later, a number of
prisoner aid societies, supported in part by the government, were established.

● Sir Walter Crofton and the Irish System

Sir Walter Crofton, who had studied Maconochie’s innovations on Norfolk Island, became the
administrator of the Irish prison system in 1854. Crofton adopted the use of the marks system inside
prison. Under Crofton’s administration, the Irish system became renowned for its three levels: strict
imprisonment, indeterminate sentence, and ticket-of-leave. Each prisoner’s classification was
determined by the marks he or she had earned for good conduct and achievement in industry and
education, a concept borrowed from Maconochie’s experience on Norfolk Island.

The ticket-of-leave system was different from the one in England. The general written conditions
of the Irish ticket-of-leave were supplemented with instructions designed for closer supervision and
control and thus resembled the conditions of parole in the United States today. Ticket-of-leave men and
women residing in rural areas were under police supervision, but a civilian employee called the
inspector of released prisoners supervised those living in Dublin. The inspector had the responsibility of
securing employment for the ticket-of-leave person, visiting the residence, and verifying employment.
The Irish system of ticket-of-leave had the confidence and support of the public and of convicted
criminals.

Development of Parole in the United States

In the United States, parole was first tried in New York at Elmira Reformatory in 1876. Federal
parole began in June 1910 because of legislation that established the first three federal penitentiaries.
In 1930, a formalized federal parole board was created under the U.S. attorney general’s office. In
1950, because of a larger prison population in the federal system, the parole board expanded and was
placed under the Justice Department.

Four concepts justified the development of parole in the United States: (1) reduction in the
length of incarceration as a reward for good conduct, (2) supervision of the parolee, (3) imposition of
the indeterminate sentence, and (4) reduction in the rising cost of incarceration.

● Zebulon R. Brockway and the Indeterminate Sentence

In 1865 American penal reformers were well aware of the reforms achieved by the conditional
release programs of the Irish system. As a result, an indeterminate sentence law was adopted in
1876 in New York with the help of prison superintendent Zebulon R. Brockway. The system
established at Elmira included grading inmates on their conduct and achievement, compulsory
education, and careful selection for parole. Volunteer citizens, known as guardians, supervised the
parolees. A condition of parole was that parolees report to the guardian the first day of each month.
Written reports became required and were submitted to the institution after being signed by the
parolee’s employer and guardian. By 1944, every U.S. jurisdiction had adopted some form of parole
release and indeterminate sentence.