Supervised release

Parole is a temporary release of a prisoner who agrees to certain conditions before the completion of the maximum sentence period, originating from the French ("voice", "spoken words"). The term became associated during the Middle Ages with the release of prisoners who gave their word.

This differs greatly from amnesty or commutation of sentence in that parolees are still considered to be serving their sentences, and may be returned to prison if they violate the conditions of their parole. Conditions of parole often include things such as obeying the law, refraining from drug and alcohol use, avoiding contact with the parolee's victims, obtaining employment and keeping required appointments with a parole officer. Should the parolee have legal dependents, namely minor children, he is also required to show cause of being a dedicated caregiver. A specific type of parole is medical parole or compassionate release which is the release of prisoners on medical or humanitarian grounds. Some justice systems, such as the United States federal system, place defendants on supervised release after serving their entire prison sentence; this is not the same as parole. In Colorado, parole is an additional punishment after the entire prison sentence is served, called "mandatory parole", per §18-1.3-401(1)(a)(V)(B).

Alexander Maconochie, a Scottish geographer and captain in the Royal Navy, introduced the modern idea of parole when, in 1840, he was appointed superintendent of the British penal colonies in Norfolk Island, Australia. He developed a plan to prepare them for eventual return to society that involved three grades. The first two consisted of promotions earned through good behaviour, labour, and study. The third grade in the system involved conditional liberty outside of prison while obeying rules. A violation would return them to prison and they would start all over again through the ranks of the three-grade process. He reformed its ticket of leave system, instituting what many consider the world's first parole system. Prisoners served indeterminate sentences from which they could be released early if they showed evidence of rehabilitation through participation in a graded classification system based on a unit of exchange called a mark. Prisoners earned marks through good behavior, lost them through bad behavior, and could spend them on passage to higher classification statuses ultimately conveying freedom.

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