Prisoner Reentry and Parole

Although many prisoners have been released into society without regards to monitoring post release since the beginning of incarceration, prisoner reentry has become more of a concentration in the criminal justice system recently in attempts to reduce the prison population. Recidivism in released prisoners causes them to return to prison thus, adding to the growing prison population. There have been many programs enacted to reduce this occurrence such as parole. Parole programs allow convicted felons to serve the rest of their time under supervision outside the prison. The programs vary in their policies as to how they release inmates differing depending on where the parole board is located. Focusing on rural areas and data collected from the Wyoming parole board, the purpose of this paper is to assess previous research compared to the current policies in place in an attempt to find a relation as to why an individual breaks parole as well as when this occurs.