While they may sound similar, parole and probation are two very different things. According to Lisa Shapiro Strauss, Attorney At Law, the difference is that a person has to have been incarcerated in order to be put on parole, while probation is something that a person can be eligible for instead of going to prison.
As a criminal defense lawyer in Harris County, Texas, Strauss frequently works with clients who are hoping to receive either probation or parole. However, both probation and parole are legal classifications that people can have taken away if they do not live up to the standards that a judge has set forth.
Parole
For the most part, parole is when a person who has been incarcerated in the state prison system is allowed by the judge to leave prison early. Rather than forgiving the rest of the original prison sentence, the judge in this case is simply allowing the convicted person to serve out the remainder of his or her time from his home rather than a jail or prison cell.
Before a person can receive parole, he usually has to have demonstrated good behavior over a period of time in prison. After a person has shown this good behavior for a certain length of time—the exact number of years and months can vary—he will be allowed to go before a parole board and ask the board for parole. This board will then decide whether the behavior the convicted person has been showing is good enough to warrant an early release from prison, generally based on whether the person has gotten into any trouble with other convicts or the prison guards. If the parole board decides that the person has been well-behaved enough to deserve an early release, then he will be allowed to leave the prison and return home with certain restrictions.
Strauss uses the example of a convicted felon who was given a five-year sentence. If this felon serves three years of prison time without causing any trouble, then he may be granted a two-year parole sentence, which allows him to serve the remainder of his sentence from home. “Parole is basically living out the end of the sentence back in society,” Strauss says.
As a criminal defense lawyer in Harris County, Strauss often warns her clients that getting parole is not a free pass. Once someone is given parole, he must meet with a parole officer at least once a month at a preset time. He must also follow the law to a tee, since breaking the law in any way could cause the parole to be revoked. “If they break the law and pick up any kind of new case, then the state will issue a warrant for arrest based on the parole violation and they can be sent back to prison to finish out the remainder of that five year sentence,” Strauss explains.
Probation
Probation, meanwhile, is a very different thing. Probation is something that a judge will decide if a person is eligible for as an alternative to serving time in jail. Whether the case that is presented is a misdemeanor or a felony, a judge could allow the convicted person to avoid jail by choosing probation instead.
To describe this better, Strauss uses the example of a person who was convicted of a DWI in Texas and given a six-month sentence in jail, which is the maximum amount of sentencing that a person can get for a first-time DWI offense. Because it was the person’s first offense, the judge could decide to probate the sentence—meaning that the judge could allow the criminal to be on probation for however long of a period he chooses. In this case, the judge might require the convicted person to be on probation for one year instead of having to serve six months in jail.
During that year of probation, the person in question would need to do everything that the courts require, including meeting frequently with probation officers, staying out of trouble, taking classes, and doing random urine analysis tests to test for drugs or alcohol. “If you stay clean, then you will never see any jail time, because your sentence was probated into that [probation] so you can live outside of the jail system,” Strauss says.
As a criminal defense lawyer in Harris County, Texas, Strauss frequently works with clients who are up for parole or probation and helps them do everything possible to secure their freedom from jail.
This article is for informational purposes only. You should not rely on this article as a legal opinion on any specific facts or circumstances, and you should not act upon this information without seeking professional counsel. Publication of this article and your receipt of this article does not create an attorney-client relationship.
