Probation
Offenders are ordinarily required to maintain law-abiding behavior, and may be ordered to refrain from possession of firearms, remain employed, participate in an educational program, abide by a curfew, live at a directed place, obey the orders of the probation officer, or not leave the jurisdiction.
Additionally, offenders can be subject to refrain from the use or possession of alcohol and other drugs and may be ordered to submit to alcohol/drug tests or participate in alcohol/drug psychological treatment.
Some courts permit defendants of limited means to perform community service in order to pay off their probation fines.
In English common law, prior to the advent of democratic rule, the courts could temporarily suspend the execution of a sentence to allow a criminal defendant to appeal to the monarch for a pardon.
At first, judges, most notably Peter Oxenbridge Thatcher of Boston, used "release on recognizance" or bail and simply refrained from taking any further action.
In 1959, the new states of Alaska and Hawaii, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and the territories of the Virgin Islands, Guam, and American Samoa ratified the act as well.
When child support nonpayment was criminalized in the early 20th century, probation was the primary punishment levied on nonsupporters.
[8] Those in favor of criminalizing nonsupport wanted a penalty that "would maximize deterrence, preserve the family (at least in a financial sense), and lighten the burden on charities and the state to support women and children.
"[8] When New York authorized probation as a punishment in 1901, the New York City magistrates cited four benefits to probation as opposed to incarceration: "(1) 'Punishment without disgrace, and effective without producing embitterment, resentment or demoralization,' (2) judicial discretion to make the punishment fit the crime, (3) '[p]unishment that is borne solely by the guilty and displacing a system that frequently involved the innocent and helpless,' and (4) punishment attended by increased revenue to the City and by a saving in expense.
'"[8] The existence of probation officers in child support cases made it so the state was involved in family life in previously unprecedented ways.
[8] Probation officers would often attempt to reconcile separated couples, encourage husbands to drink less alcohol, and teach wives housekeeping skills.
[8] The National Probation Association (NPA) was instrumental in the creation of designated family courts in the United States as well, which subsequently assumed jurisdiction of nonsupport cases.
[10] Some types of supervision may entail installing some form of monitoring software or conducting computer searches to ascertain what an offender is doing online.
[12] Offenders under standard supervision are generally required to report to an officer, most commonly between biweekly and quarterly, and are subject to any other conditions as may have been ordered, such as alcohol/drug treatment, community service, and so on.
The probationer is expected to complete any conditions of the order with no involvement of a probation officer, and perhaps within a period shorter than that of the sentence itself.
For example, given one year of unsupervised probation, a probationer might be required to have completed community service and paid court costs or fines within the first six months.
If a court decides to grant a person probation, they must then determine how to impose the sentence based on the seriousness of the crime, recidivism, the circumstances of the convict, and the recommendations from the corrections officials.
For example, in the U.S. state of Georgia an offender may apply for early termination of felony probation after serving at least three years of the sentence.
