ABSTRACT

This chapter discusses the results from Phelps, using data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics to chart the expansion of mass probation and evaluate whether mass probation developed in the same states—driven by the same criminal justice trends—as mass imprisonment. The primary data are state-level counts of probation and prison populations collected by the Bureau of Justice Statistics and reported in the “Prisoners,” “Probation and Parole in the United States,” and “Correctional Populations in the United States” series. Yet the probation population—especially for misdemeanor offenses—is more difficult to enumerate than the number of people imprisoned. The variation in approaches to punishment—and, in particular, the unpredictable nature of low-imprisonment states’ probation rates—reveals that comparative research focused primarily on imprisonment rates fundamentally misconstrues state variation. The chapter examines state-level variation in incarceration and probation rates in 1980, 1990, 2000, and 2010, evaluating whether probation expanded most rapidly in states that embraced imprisonment or those that maintained more moderate rates.