USSC Studies Supervision Violations

Summary

Federal Probation and Supervised Release Violations presents data on 108,000 violation hearings that occurred between 2013 and 2017.  The report examines the prevalence, types, and locations of federal supervision violations as well as the characteristics of 82,000 violators.  The report also compares supervision violators to the population of federal offenders originally sentenced to probation or a sentence including a term of supervised release during the same time period.

Highlights

• Nationwide, the number of individuals under federal supervision remained relatively stable during the study period; however, half were concentrated in 21 of the 94 districts.
• The rate of violation hearings also remained relatively stable nationwide; however, the prevalence of violations varied considerably among the districts.
• Individuals who violated their conditions of supervision typically did so within the first two years.
• Supervision violators tended to have more serious original crimes and criminal histories than the overall federal offender population sentenced to supervision during the same time period.
• Drug offenses were the most common primary offense type for both groups.
• The majority of supervision violators were sentenced in accordance with the Chapter Seven Revocation Table.

Read the Report