The history and spread of probation in America

The history and spread of probation in America The term probation comes from the Latin verb probare, meaning to prove or to test. Throughout history probation has been used in various forms. From its earliest American origins probation has broadened and expanded immensely in its function within the criminal justice system. The terms and conditions of probation continue to evolve, as well as the various consequences imposed if said conditions are not closely adhered to. Probation is a privilege granted to particular law violators in lieu of imprisonment. Just as the root word derived from, probation is a test issued to an offender, offering them a chance to prove themselves. HISTORY Elements of probation can be seen throughout history. There is reference in Mosaic Law to the right of sanctuary. Right of sanctuary offered cities of refuge to killers seeking to escape retribution. While probation as we know it today is not an escape from punishment, it can be seen as a sort of sanctuary in that probationers are offered the opportunity to atone for their crimes and maintain in the free society. The suspended sentence, commonly used in the Middle Ages in England, mirrors probation in that it can be revoked and a prison sentence imposed if the offender fails to stay out of trouble for the amount of time specified. Suspended sentence at this time, however, did not include any kind of supervision, nor were there any set goals of reform. There was also a form of temporary release used by the courts during this time. Binding over for good behavior offered offenders an opportunity to secure pardons or lesser sentences. Matthew Davenport Hill was a English barrister and judge in Eighteenth Century England. As Recorder of Birmingham, a judicial post, he instituted a practice for individuals who did not appear to be hopeless cases. In witnessing the sentencing of youthful offenders to the custody of their parents for supervision, Hill decided that those offenders who showed hope of rehabilitation could also be placed in the hands of willing guardians. As part of this arrangement these willing guardians would receive periodic visits from local police to stay current on the progress of the released offender. JOHN AUGUSTUS John Augustus, credited as the Father of Probation, embarked upon a journey that would revolutionize the field of corrections in America. His efforts began when he persuaded a local court in Massachusetts to release into his custody an adult drunk, instead of imprisoning him. This challenge was met with great success. A shoe cobbler in Boston, Augustus supervised the man, paid his fines, and helped him achieve sobriety. His efforts broadened to and he began taking responsibility for juveniles. Again his efforts were fruitful and the court was pleased with his results. Reform became a true possibility. Over the course of his eighteen years as a volunteer probation officer [1841-1858], Augustus bailed 1,946 men, women and children. A mere ten of this number forfeited their bond. The first probation statute was passed in 1878 shortly after his death. Augustus work was a remarkable accomplishment when measured against any standard. (New York City Department of Probation) THE SPREAD OF PROBATION By 1900, Vermont, Rhode Island, New Jersey, New York, Minnesota, and Illinois passed probation laws; by 1910, 32 more states had passed legislation establishing juvenile probation; and by 1930 juvenile probation was legislated in every state except Wyoming. (Office of Probation and Correctional Alternatives) Every state in the country offers probation to both adults and juveniles today. While the structure may vary from state to state the possibility for reform remains a strong and solid objective. Probation not only offers the offender incentive to change it saves the public enormous funds as the cost is minimal when compared to the increasing costs of incarceration. Probation also serves to abate the current concerns of overcrowding in prisons. THE USES/GOAL OF PROBATION Probation has many practical functions in the field of corrections. As mentioned above, probation is privilege not a right. One of the many aims of probation is protecting the public. Probation is generally issued to low risk, non-violent offenders. Often these offenders are open to the idea of treatment and rehabilitation in an effort to avoid becoming professional offenders. Until recently, probation was predominantly used for first offense misdemeanants, however, with the implementation of get tough laws and the war on drugs saw the court system becoming more and more bogged down with cases and the prison system became increasingly prone to overcrowding. Depending on the sentencing guidelines for the crime committed, the accused may offer to plead guilty to a lesser charge. Probation is a valuable tool for the offender, the district attorney, and the court system. If the criteria of a case make the offender eligible for probation a presentence investigation report is ordered to determine if probation could be a valid and effective punishment. The presentence investigation report includes the offenders background and their disposition to their charges as well as other useful information. CONDITIONS OF PROBATION/INTERMEDIATE SANCTIONS If probation is granted, several conditions may be imposed. These conditions will be specifically designed to the individual based on their criminal record and the nature of the crime they have pled guilty to. There are various levels of probation. The lowest level of probation is unsupervised. This is when the offender is placed on probation and perhaps ordered to pay fines and court costs but is not obligated to a regular interaction with a probation officer. They are generally ordered to call in on arranged dates and update the probation officer as to their progress as well as maintain gainful employment in the community. Supervised Probation requires the offender to report to their local probation office on an established number of days per week or month, depending on the level of supervision. Often supervised probation will contain conditions such as: reporting regularly, failing to engage in any further criminal activity, submitting to searches, abstaining from using drugs, abstaining from owning a firearm, limiting alcohol intake, abstaining from associating with known criminals and notifying their supervising officer of any major changes such as relocation or job change. (Allen, Latessa, and Ponder 93) The probationer is required to pay a monthly supervision fee and a schedule to pay other fines and court fees imposed is set up between the offender and the probation officer. Certain individuals have specific conditions of probation to which they must adhere. This is sometimes as a result of the crime they committed (including factors of the crime, such as drug abuse). Specific conditions include (but are not limited to): methadone maintenance, taking Antibuse, attending 12-Step meetings, drug testing, treatment (inpatient or outpatient), and vocational training. (Allen, Latessa, and Ponder 93) These conditions are imposed to aid the probationer in successful completion of their court ordered term of supervision. There has been an adequate success rate with these programs to date. Special conditions of probation are additional punishments ordered by the courts and act to strengthen supervision. The goal is to reduce recidivism by addressing the underlying cause of the individuals criminal behavior as well as protect the local community. Special conditions of probation are: house arrest, electronic monitoring, intensive supervision, halfway house residency, boot camp programs and split sentences. (Allen, Latessa, and Ponder 93) Imposing these special conditions is at times the last line of defense for keeping the offender out of prison. In some cases, if probation is violated, additional conditions can be imposed in an effort to get the offender back on track. REVOCATION OF PROBATION Failure to adhere to these conditions, excessive violations of these conditions or failing to remain current on court mandated payments can result in probation revocation. When an offender is sentenced to a specific amount of time in jail or prison, that sentence is sometimes suspended in favor of placing the individual on probation. Repetitive violations or new charges can be cause to revoke that probation and resentence the offender or activate the sentence that they are currently on probation to avoid serving. There are a variety of reasons offenders are unable to comply with the conditions of their probation. Some are indifferent or hostile, being unwilling or unable to cooperate with their supervising officer or the court. Some are too immature emotionally to comply with directions. (Allen, Latessa, and Ponder 93) Technical probation violations require the offender to re-appear in court in front of the judge. If the probationer fails to appear a warrant will be issued for their arrest. Revocation is a serious matter and the probationer has the right to counsel for the hearing. SUMMARY The use of probation in our nations criminal justice system is widespread. Probation allows the offender the freedom to earn a living and support their family, it allows the community to feel safer knowing that these individuals are under close supervision, it saves the state money that could better be spent on reform rather than incarceration and the building of new prisons. The number of Americans currently on probation is astounding. According to the United Stated Department of Justice at the end of 2008 there were better than 4.2 million adults on probation and another almost 830,000 on parole. That number indicates that 1 in 45 adults in the U.S. is currently under community supervision. These figures show the importance of probation in America today.

Essay --

When Osama Bin Laden was killed by US Navy Seals in May 2011, strategists of the world took notice . While this incident was of great importance to an apparently stagnant global war on terror, the fact that the mastermind behind the insurgent juggernaut al Qa’ida was able to hide inside a supposed ally’s borders is of far graver concern. Regardless if Pakistan was complicit in or ignorant of Bin Laden’s sanctuary, Pakistan proved they are incapable of policing their borders to a level that satisfies the world community. US intelligence officials estimate Pakistan has anywhere from 110-200 nuclear weapons . According to George Tenet, â€Å"the most senior leaders of al Qa'ida are still singularly focused on acquiring WMD [weapons of mass destruction].† Allowing an insurgency with nuclear ambitions to flourish is inexcusable. As the war in Afghanistan winds down, the insurgent threat in the region is not going away. Irregular conflict will continue a nd the area where the US and its allies need to pay particular attention is Pakistan. Our strategy should be a globally unified effort to strengthen the Pakistani security structure while removing any potential source of an insurgency. To combat the likely difficulties in implementing this strategy we must focus on not limiting our strategic goals, embrace unity of effort as the only means to winning, and we must remain flexible in an unknown future. There are a number of obstacles that threaten to make implementing such a strategy either ineffective or impossible. Professor Colin Gray from the Centre for Security Studies at the University of Hull discussed such sources of difficulty in 1999. He argued three reasons as to why it is â€Å"difficult to do strategy well:† First, its very na... ...ture is to accept that it is unknown, and focus the unified effort on the worst possible scenario. In the case of Pakistan, that worst case scenario is obvious: insurgents getting a WMD. This nuclear threat might be the catalyst that drives competing agencies to look beyond their differences towards a very clear and common goal. Gray concludes his article with this reminder to future strategists: â€Å"You do not have to win elegantly; you just have to win.† If our strategists remained focused on â€Å"winning† we can hopefully hinder the inevitable difficulties in doing strategy well. If we do not let the difficulty of such a lofty goal limit our strategic goals, if we use the dire consequences of failure to force competent unity of effort and we don’t let an unknown future distract us from the primary goal, it is entirely possible that we can indeed â€Å"win† in Pakistan.

Pervasis Case Study

Pervasis Receives Orphan Drug Designation in Europe for Vascugel ® to Prevent Arteriovenous Access Failure in Patients Undergoing Hemodialysis Cell-Based Therapy Aims to Regulate the Body’s Healing Response, Promoting Vascular Repair, Reducing the Need for Repeat Surgical Procedures and Improving Patient Outcomes Cambridge, Mass. , March 1, 2011 — Pervasis Therapeutics, Inc. announced today that the European Commission (EC) has granted Orphan Drug Designation for Vascugel ® for the prevention of hemodialysis vascular access failure in patients with end stage renal disease (ESRD).The designation follows a positive opinion from The Committee for Orphan Medicinal Products (COMP) within the European Medicines Agency (EMA) earlier this year. Vascugel is a novel endothelial cell-based therapy that aims to regulate the body’s healing response following surgical interventions to create vascular access which are necessary for ESRD patients undergoing hemodialysis.By p romoting and enhancing vascular repair, Vascugel reduces the need for repeat surgical interventions and improves overall patient outcomes. ESRD is an advanced and irreversible condition treated mainly by hemodialysis or kidney transplantation. It is estimated that more than 250,000 ESRD patients in the EU receive hemodialysis, a blood purification therapy designed to replace critical kidney functions – such as filtering waste.Orphan Drug Designation by the EC provides regulatory and financial incentives for companies to develop and market therapies that treat a life-threatening or chronically debilitating condition affecting no more than five in 10,000 persons in the European Union (EU). In addition to a 10year period of marketing exclusivity in the EU after product approval, Orphan Drug Designation provides companies with scientific advice and regulatory assistance from the EMA during the product development phase, direct access to centralized marketing authorization, as wel l as reductions in certain fees. We are committed to bringing Vascugel to patients with end stage renal disease who currently must endure serious complications and repeat surgical procedures so they can continue to receive life-saving hemodialysis treatment,† Frederic Chereau, president and chief executive officer of Pervasis. â€Å"Receiving Orphan Drug Designation in the EU is an important step, as it will help to advance the development process, and enhance our ability to deliver our novel cellbased therapeutic approach to address this significant unmet medical need. Vascugel has demonstrated proof of concept in two Phase 2 clinical trials involving patients with ESRD who require a permanent arteriovenous (AV) access in order to undergo hemodialysis. In these trials, Vascugel exhibited an excellent safety profile, and encouraging efficacy trends were observed, including improved duration of patency (or unimpeded blood flow) and a delay in time to first intervention as comp ared to placebo. In 2009, Pervasis received Orphan Drug Designation from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for Vascugel in patients with ESRD. Pervasis announced last month that the FDA had granted Fast Track review status for Vascugel. Last year, Pervasis reached an agreement with the FDA for a Phase 3 clinical trial of Vascugel under the Agency’s Special Protocol Assessment (SPA) procedure, whereby FDA formalized its agreement that the design of the Phase 3 trial was acceptable to support a regulatory submission seeking new drug approval.Failure of Hemodialysis Access Points Leads to Poor Outcomes During hemodialysis, blood is removed from the body, filtered through a dialyzer, or artificial kidney, and then returned to the body. Patients must undergo a surgical intervention to create a vascular access that enables blood to flow from the body to the dialyzer and back to the body. AV fistulae (created by directly joining an artery and vein) and AV grafts (created u sing a synthetic tube to join an artery and vein) are the two primary types of hemodialysis access.Due to an inflammatory cascade triggered by surgical intervention, the vascular access often has difficulty healing, and quickly become unusable or clot rapidly, prompting the need for additional, recurring surgeries to create a new access which can lead to multiple complications. Up to 60 percent of all arteriovenous (AV) grafts require re-intervention after one year. 1, 2 AV access failure is the most common reason for hospitalization among hemodialysis patients and can lead to anemia, infection, weight loss, jaundice, prolonged bleeding, and other serious complications. Vascugel ® – Combating Inflammation and Promoting Healing Pervasis’ novel approach to cell therapy uses adult-differentiated allogeneic endothelial cells (donor endothelial cells with a highly targeted biologic function) embedded in a polymer matrix to enhance the body’s natural healing respons e. The endothelium is the thin layer of cells that lines the interior surface of blood vessels in the body. Endothelial cells are critical to tissue repair and health, and have a well-understood role in regulating many of the body’s healing processes, including those associated with vascular repair.Vascugel, which utilizes Pervasis’ patented endothelial cell-based platform, is placed on the outside of the blood vessel at the AV access site during the surgical intervention to create the access. The endothelial formulation in Vascugel secrete several factors that combat inflammation and promote proper vascular healing, reducing thrombosis (or clotting) and the formation of intimal hyperplasia, or a thickening of the blood vessel wall in response to injury. After approximately four to eight weeks, Vascugel is safely resorbed by the body.Pervasis’ other areas of clinical investigation include improving outcomes in patients with peripheral artery disease (PAD) follow ing surgical procedures such as percutaneous transluminal angioplasties (PTAs) with stenting, the failures of which result in serious complications and a significant increase in medical costs. Earlier this year, Pervasis announced it has also embarked on an oncology development program using its proprietary endothelial cellbased platform to prevent solid tumor growth, cancer recurrence and metastatic disease. About Pervasis Dixon et al.DAC Study Group. Effect of dipyridamole plus aspirin on hemodialysis graft patency. N Engl J Med. 2009; 360: 2191-2201. 2 Hayashi et al. Vascular access for hemodialysis. Nat Clin Pract Nephrol 2006; 2: 504-513 3 Castner D. Recommendations for tracking arteriovenous access complications using a charting-by-exception model. Anna Journal, 1998; 25(4): 393-396. 1 Pervasis Inc. is a clinical stage company that is developing groundbreaking endothelial cellbased therapies designed to regulate the body’s natural healing and repair processes in various critical therapeutic areas.The company has initially focused on developing therapies to improve the outcomes of common vascular interventions, such as arteriovenous access, angioplasties, stent placements, and peripheral and coronary bypass grafts – the failure of which result in serious complications and a significant increase in medical costs. The company’s lead program, Vascugel ®, has demonstrated proof of concept and safety in two Phase 2 clinical trials.Pervasis is also applying its endothelial cell-based platform technology to develop an oncology therapy focused on preventing solid tumor growth, cancer recurrence and metastatic disease, as well as products for inflammatory disease and orthopedic injury. Pervasis is a privately held company with funding from Flagship Ventures, Polaris Venture Partners, Highland Capital Partners and the Richter Family Fund. For more information, please visit www. pervasistx. com. This news release contains certain forward-looki ng statements that involve risks and uncertainties.Such statements are only predictions and the company's actual results may differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements. Factors that may cause such differences include the timing of clinical trials, the risk that products that appeared promising in early research and clinical trials do not demonstrate safety or efficacy in clinical trials and the risk that the company will not obtain approval to market its products. Company Contact: Margaret O’Toole Pervasis Therapeutics, Inc. 617-871-1201 [email  protected] com Media Contact: Liz Falcone Feinstein Kean Healthcare 617-256-6622 liz. [email  protected] com

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