One in 10 Prison Admissions Is Now for Technical Parole Violation
by Chuck Sharman
The death of a pair of parole reform bills in the New Jersey legislature highlights a persistent problem plaguing prisons across the country: 10% of new prison admissions are not for new crimes but for technical violations of parole that reincarcerate released prisoners. While addressing this would quickly and safely reduce prison populations, saving taxpayers millions of dollars, proposals consistently encounter fierce headwinds from prosecutors like those that killed New Jersey Assembly Bill 6206 and Senate Bill 5000 on January 12, 2026.
Outgoing Gov. Phil Murphy (D) had made parole reform a centerpiece of his legislative efforts in his last year in office (incoming Gov. Mikie Sherrill (D) was elected to replace him in November 2024 and sworn in the following January). Both measures were designed to short-circuit existing mechanisms that automatically result in an arrest warrant whenever a parole violation occurs; even minor offenses could be enough for a parolee to get tossed back in prison.
“Right now, roughly 10% of our state’s entire prison population consists of people who are being held behind bars for committing a technical parole violation, like missing a scheduled meeting or forgetting to report a move to a new town,” Murphy told lawmakers in January 2025. “Nobody should lose their freedom because of a technicality.” But after the two bills were introduced, the County Prosecutors Association (CPA) of New Jersey declared it was “strongly opposed” to what it described as an effort to relabel “persistent and serious” infractions as “technical violations,” according to a statement from CPA Pres. Bradley D. Billhimer, who also serves as Ocean County Prosecutor. Both proposals were tabled within a month.
The figure cited by Murphy was first reported in October 2024 by the nonprofit Prison Policy Initiative (PPI), which said that given the nature of parole and probation “rules and regulations—many having little to do with underlying offenses or individual needs—inadvertent and minor violations are almost inevitable.” Because of this and the sheer size of the population under supervision—almost two-and-a-half times the total number of people confined in state and federal prisons—nearly 50,000 people were incarcerated last year for a technical parole violation.
These violations include “missing curfew, failing a drug test, or missing a check-in meeting,” the PPI said, and they “only count as lawbreaking for people under community supervision.” Despite these frequent interruptions, which can stretch to hours for those without access to a car, there are also requirements in many jurisdictions to maintain employment or enrollment in a school. Other conditions include “fines, fees, restitution, and monthly supervision fees,” even though over 50% of those on parole earn less than $20,000 annually.
Restrictions on associating with certain people—such as other released prisoners—also hamper re-entry, as PLN reported. [See: PLN, June 2024, p.46.] Most parolees face severe restrictions on their movement that prevent many from leaving the county or the state. As a result, the PPI noted, there are 582,000 women on probation who live in a state with an abortion ban and prevent them from traveling to another state. See: One Size Fits None: How ‘Standard Conditions’ of Probation Set People Up to Fail, PPI (Oct. 2024).
Additional Source: New Jersey Advance Media
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