Combat Arms
                         2869 Grove Way
              Castro Valley, California 94546-6709
                    Telephone (415) 538-6544
                       BBS: (415) 537-1777



ADVANCE FOR RELEASE AT 5 P.M., EST                           BJS
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 1989                         1-202-724-7782


            2.8 Million Adults on Probation or Parole


     There were 2,356,483 adults on federal, state or local
probation at the end of last year, and 407,977 were on parole,
the Bureau of Justice Statistics announced today.  The Bureau,
which is a component of the U.S. Department of Justice's Office
of Justice Programs, said the number of persons on probation
increased 4.9 percent from 1987 through 1988, and the number on
parole increased 12.5 percent.

     State and local authorities supervised 97 percent of the
men and women on probation; the other 3 percent were under the
supervision of federal officials.  Of the adults on parole, 95
percent were supervised by state and local agencies, the other 5
percent by federal agencies.

     The federal probation population grew by 0.3 percent last
year; state and local probationers grew by 5 percent.  The
federal parole population increased 8.7 percent during 1988; the
state and local parole rolls grew by 12.7 percent.

     Approximately three out of four of the 3.7 million adults
under some form of correctional care, custody, or control during
1988 were being supervised in the community on probation or
parole.  The other fourth were incarcerated in local jails or
state or federal prisons.

     Probationers accounted for 63.5 percent of those under
correctional supervision, parolees 11 percent, state or federal
prisoners 16.3 percent, and local jail inmates 9.2 percent.

     Altogether, about 2 percent of the nation's adults were
under some form of correctional supervision last year.  The
figure for adult males--who accounted for 87 percent of all
those under correctional care--was 3.7 percent.

     The number of probationers grew most rapidly in the West
(7.5 percent) last year, followed by the Northeast (5.3
percent), the Midwest (5.2 percent) and the South (3.6 percent).
More than 39 percent of probationers nationwide were in the
South, with Texas reporting the largest number--almost 289,000.
Five jurisdictions (District of Columbia, Georgia, Texas,
Maryland, and Massachusetts) reported probation counts in excess
of 2 percent of their adult populations.

     The parole population grew the most in the Northeast,
increasing 15.2 percent from 1987 through 1988.  The number of
parolees in the Western States increased 14.8 percent, compared
to 11.2 percent in the South and 9.3 percent in the Midwest.

     Because many states changed their sentencing practices from
1977 through 1988 to promote consistency and uniformity in
sentencing, the proportion of prisoners released through
discretionary parole board decisions fell from 72 percent in
1977 to 40 percent of all released prisoners during 1988.
However, supervised mandatory releases--through which prisoners
are discharged to supervision in the community after sentence
reduction by good-time credits--grew from 6 percent of the
releases in 1977 to 31 percent in 1988.

     Single copies of the bulletin "Probation and Parole, 1988"
(NCJ-119970), as well as other Bureau of Justice Statistics
publications and data may be obtained from the National Criminal
Justice Reference Service, Box 6000, Rockville, Maryland 20850.
The telephone number is 1-301-251-5500.  The toll-free number
from places other than Maryland and metropolitan Washington,
D.C., is 1-800-732-3277.



90-6 (H)
After hours contact: Stu Smith (301) 983-9354