Probation and Parole: Procedural Protection

Probation is a form of criminal sanction imposed by a court upon an offender, nearly always after a verdict or a plea of guilty or nolo contendere but without the prior imposition of a term of imprisonment. Probation may be linked to a jail term, known as a split sentence, where the judge sentences the offender to a specified jail term to be followed by a specified period of release on probation. Parole, on the other hand, is the conditional release of a convicted offender from a penal or correctional institution by an administrative agency: the parolee remains in the community within the continued custody of the state during the remainder of his previously imposed prison sentence.