RESOLUTION ON COMMUNITY CORRECTIONS

WHEREAS, the membership of the Association of Paroling Authorities International, recognizes that alternatives to incarceration facilitate both public safety and rehabilitative interests; and

WHEREAS, parole is a form of community corrections, as an alternative to continued incarceration; and

WHEREAS, paroling authorities have a unique opportunity to identify, at the release and violation decision-making points, those offenders who pose a minimal risk to community safety and for whom community resources would have a positive impact; and

WHEREAS, prison programs and facilities are costly with limited resources to initiate and effect offender rehabilitation; and

WHEREAS, parole supervision is an economical correctional alternative with expanded resources capable of completing the offender rehabilitative process; and

WHEREAS, the most effective sanction, after taking into account all available evidence concerning the potential benefits and costs to the offender, the offender’s family and society, can be community programming and supervision;

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that paroling authorities, in decision making, promote the use of parole as an alternative to continued incarceration for appropriate offenders as a means to facilitate both public safety and rehabilitative interests; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that paroling authorities support both the utilization of effective restrictive sanctions, programs and facilities consistent with public and individual safety and maintenance of social order.

Adopted April 30, 2008