The style of community supervision has changed over time. Community supervision has changed from a casework approach where supervisors were directly involved in the rehabilitation program of the offenders to a surveillance approach. The surveillance approach plays emphasis on monitoring and ensuring that offenders comply with the stipulated community supervision rules (Seiter, 2010).
The reasons why current supervision is different from previous supervision comprises the inclusion of more supervision conditions that are effective in detecting any form of violation. For instance, offenders are subjected to alcohol testing. Further, to avoid risk factors associated with offenders under supervision, offenders are grouped into aggregate groups as opposed to previous individual supervision. In addition, a large number of current parole officers are trained to enforce the law and thus they lack in psychology and sociology training which was common in the previous approach. Previous supervision allowed minimum violation in the quest of dealing with other rehabilitation issues while the current supervision does not allow for any form of violation (Seiter, 2010).
The current community supervision style has downsides because it has proved to be expensive due to the increasing number of revocations in the pursuit to ensure that the system upholds the provisions of surveillance. Further, offenders whose community supervision is revoked find it hard to reintegrate back to the community because prison life does not ensure efficient rehabilitation and counseling thus, not efficient (Seiter, 2010).
Seiter (2010) proposes that the current approach to community supervision will have to change because despite the conditions provided for surveillance supervision, determined offenders are more likely to commit a crime. Further, Seiter (2010) argues that the current system has proved to be expensive because of the increasing numbers of revocations thus costing the tax payer more. In conclusion Seiter (2010) argues that proactive supervision such as Proactive Community Supervision (PCS) has proved to be more successful than surveillance supervision as it instigates change in an offender hence, calling for a change in the current approach to community supervision.
Seiter, R. P. (2011). Corrections: An introduction (3rd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.