June 10, 2026 10:50AM # Study: More Parole Doesn’t Mean More Safety — It May Mean More Prison By [Jeffrey Miron](https://www.cato.org/people/jeffrey-miron) --- SHARE Listen to this article Generated with [ ElevenLabs](https://elevenlabs.io/) AI technology. Loading the [Elevenlabs Text to Speech](https://elevenlabs.io/text-to-speech) AudioNative Player... [California](https://courts.ca.gov/sites/default/files/courts/default/2024-12/prcs_act_of_2011.pdf), [New York](https://legalaidnyc.org/get-help/parole/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-less-is-more-act/#:~:text=Ends%20automatic%20detention%20and%20incarceration%20for%20certain%20technical%20violations), and other states have lessened parole for exiting prisoners, hoping it will [improve their reentry](https://www.thejha.org/success-stories/msr-amendments#:~:text=Evidence%20shows%20that,and%20improve%20MSR.) outcomes. [One study](https://www.cato.org/research-briefs-economic-policy/impacts-parole-supervision) of [Illinois’ efforts](https://www.civicfed.org/iifs/blog/summary-provisions-illinois-house-bill-3653-criminal-justice-omnibus-bill#:~:text=term%20of%20imprisonment.-,Mandatory,-Supervised%20Release%20Terms) > reveal\[s\] that the reform reduced the share of these prisoners who returned to prison within one year by 9–10 percentage points …. This reduction was almost entirely due to a lower rate of technical revocations of supervision. Further, there was > no evidence that the reform affected crime rates among released prisoners … \[as\] the absence of supervision reduced the likelihood of parolees committing crimes, offsetting any increases in crime associated with fewer technical revocations. … \[Also,\] longer terms of parole supervision diminish the benefits of lawful behavior because parolees face the ongoing threat of technical revocation. The researchers also > conducted policy simulations to estimate the impact of reducing existing … \[parole for low-to-medium offenders\] by half. … \[The\] findings indicate that such a reform would reduce the average prison population by roughly 3 percent and likely cause no harm to public safety. Altogether, the study > demonstrate\[s\] that existing parole systems increase reincarceration rates through technical violations of supervision conditions without bolstering public safety. *Cross-posted from* [*Substack*](https://jeffreymiron.substack.com/)*.* ##### Related Tags [Criminal Justice](https://www.cato.org/criminal-justice) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).