How Parole Officers Use Records

Abstract

Participant observation and interview methods were used to study the record-keeping behavior of parole officers employed in urban branch offices of a state parole agency. The data show that routine career contingencies reward parole officers for underreporting deviant behavior. Ceteris paribus , parole officers will ignore most of the crimes, incidents, and violations they observe in their caseloads. The exceptions to this rule are situations where the parole officer realizes some beneift from reporting an incident. These benefits relate generally to the control of parolees and to the satisfaction of informal bureaucratic demands. Ordinarily, the parole officer will report an incident and thereby create a record, only when he can use that record to enhance his work environment. These findings have implications for the validity of parole records, and more important, for the functional theory of parole bureaucracies.