ABSTRACT
FOR MUCH of correctional history, the criminal justice community has relied upon various programs designed to serve as alternatives to narceration. Probation has been and continues to e one of these correctional alternatives. Recent staistics published by the Department of Justice (Bu-eau of Justice Statistics, 1992) indicate that in December 1990, there were approximately 3 million ffenders under Federal and state probation superviion with 83 percent of the total being under active upervision. Petersilia (1985) estimates that beween 60 percent and 80 percent of all convicted riminals are sentenced to probation. Despite the prollferation of intermediate punishments such as ntensive probation, home confinement, and elecronic surveillance, probation has survived as a senencing alternative.
