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Decisions tied to parole release, supervision, and revocation are major determinants of the ebb and flow of prison populations across two-thirds of US states. We argue that parole release, as an institution, has been an underacknowledged force in American incarceration and reincarceration policy and an important contributor to the nation's buildup to mass incarceration. In paroling states, no court or state agency holds greater power than parole boards over time actually served by the majority of offenders sent to prison. We examine the leverage exercised by parole boards through their discretionary release decisions and their powers to sanction violators of parole conditions. We note the state-by-state diversity and complexity associated with parole-release decisions and the absence of successful state systems that might serve as a model for other jurisdictions. We highlight the procedural shortfalls universally associated with parole decision-making. We discuss the long reach of parole supervision and the pains it imposes on those subject to its jurisdiction, including the substantial financial burdens levied on parolees. We then turn to the prospects for parole reform and outline a comprehensive blueprint for improving parole release in America.

Sentencing structures in American jurisdictions have become extraordinarily diverse in the past twenty‐five years. Any one punishment structure, such as the federal sentencing guidelines system, the guidelines system of a particular state, or the indeterminate sentencing plan still followed in many states, contains layers of complexity and a multiplicity of decision makers who hold discretion over sentencing outcomes. Increasingly, conceptual tools are needed to analyze and evaluate the similarities and differences across many systems. The author develops basic theoretical tools to describe the building blocks of various up‐and‐running sentencing structures, with close attention to the permutations of discretions that add up to define sentencing outcomes. Such basic conceptual tools can facilitate observations about single systems and can enable comparative analyses of numerous systems. Further, the author suggests that there are both descriptive and normative principles that can be applied to the structural machinery of sentencing systems. With increasing experience, we are learning that some such innovations work better than others.

This introductory chapter is a primer on American exceptionalism in crime and punishment (AECP). In the mid- and late twentieth century, the United States diverged markedly from other Western nations first in its high rates of serious violent crime and soon after in the severity of its governmental responses. This has left an appalling legacy of AECP for the new century. The chapter expands on the scholarship in this field first by providing a brief tour of well-known AECP subject areas: incarceration and the death penalty. Next, it introduces claims that a wider menu of punishments should be included in AECP analyses, including probation supervision, parole release and supervision, economic penalties, and collateral consequences of conviction. To conclude, the chapter speaks to the importance of late twentieth-century crime rates to US punitive expansionism.

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