Revocation Hearings

Revocation Hearings

What is Revocation Hearing?

Revocation is defined as an act of bringing an offender to community supervision, parole, or mandatory supervision because they violate the conditions of their supervision and are involved in committing another crime.At first it is important to list multiple violations such as positive drug tests, missed probation appointments, failures at or refusals to attend treatment, and the like, often ending with the offender absconding from probation. For 99 percent of those motions, the probation officer deemed the defendant not amenable to probation and recommended to me that sentence the offender to the underlying 5-, 10-, or 20-year term (Parole Revocation Hearing, 2010).

For many offenders, probation does not work. After sentencing, offender to probation must be ordered to follow a set of rules. The probationers quickly learn that failure to comply the rules lead with no real consequences. There was no mechanism to swiftly address these failings, just vague threats about severe future penalties if a motion to revoke probation was filed and granted. It was all or nothing. Judge can send them to prison or send them to jail.

It is necessary to first to look at the law, the paperwork, and the system. After reviewing the penal code and court rules and discussing the whole probation revocation process with court staff, revocation officer should determine the existing statutory authority. The penal code allows to modify as well as to revoke probation. Such modifications are used, for example, to add an unforeseen mental health treatment condition or to allow an offender to leave the jurisdiction for a job assignment. In this regard, an appropriate modification would be a short time in jail and then back to see the probation officer. This is the shortest amount of jail which would get the offender's attention and tie together the bad behavior with the consequence which is appropriate.

All motions to revoke probation require an affidavit and violation report by the probation officer, listing all of the violations up until that point; this can take several hours of probation officer time to prepare.

The probation officers and law enforcement would have to change as well. Probation officers lose their discretion and have to move to sanction after every probation violation. Law enforcement would have to be willing to expeditiously take violating offenders into custody e.g., when testing positive for drugs at the probation officer office and to go ...