1 The value of this summary sheet with violation rates for significant factors will no doubt be appreciated. The question is sure to be raised if it is not possible so to combine those factors that are favorable with those that are unfavorable to success on parole that a prediction rate of expectancy of success or failure on parole could be worked out. Because of the practical value of such an expectancy rate the Committee was interested in finding out how these various factors might be combined so as to give more certainty of predictability than any factor taken separately. Accordingly, twenty-one factors were selected by which each man was graded, in comparison with the average for the 1,000 cases, upon the probabilities of making good or of failing upon parole. Since there were twenty-one factors it was theoretically possible for a man to be in a more favorable group than the average on all twentyone factors, or upon twenty factors, or upon nineteen factors, and so on down the scale to having a better position than the average upon three factors, upon two factors, upon one factor, and upon no factor. Actually for Joliet several men were found to have a record above the average on all twenty-one factors, and, in fact, the 1,000 cases had men distributed in all groups except the lowest two, that is, with one factor or no factor above the average. Table XXVII is submitted as indicating the expectancy rate for nine groups of men paroled from Joliet based on the actual violation rate in the twenty-one factors selected. Similar tables were prepared for Menard and for Pontiac with comparable results. The group with 16-21 favorable points is composed of those whose summary sheets have the highest proportion of factors favorable to success, just as the group with only two to four favorable points is made up of those with the largest number of factors unfavorable to success in their summary sheet. It is to be noted that the highest group consisting of 68 men contains only 1.5 per cent who on the basis of past experience would be expected to violate their parole, while in the lowest group the expectancy rate of violation is 76 per cent. The practical value of an expectancy rate should be as useful in parole administration as similar rates have proved to be in insurance and in other fields where forecasting the future is necessary. Not only will these rates be valuable to the Parole Board, but they will be equally valuable in organizing the work of supervision. For if the probabilities of violation are even it does not necessarily mean that the prisoner would be confined to the penitentiary until his maximum was served, but that unusual precautions would be taken in placing him and in supervising his conduct. Less of the attention of the parole officers need in the future be directed toward those who will succeed without attention and more may be given to those in need of assistance. The table of expectancy rates of violation and non-violation of parole is submitted as illustrative of the possibilities of the method and not in any sense as in a form adapted for immediate use. Indeed, the method needs to be still further refined and then applied to from 3,000 to 5,000 cases for each institution in order to obtain an adequate statistical basis for the accurate working of satisfactory expectancy tables. : Then, too, an additional caution should be given. Although statistical prediction is feasible on the basis of data now accessible, exclusive reliance should not be placed on this method. There is still room for more intensive and sympathetic study of individual cases. The scientific study of human behavior is still in its infancy. Our prisons and reformatories should become laboratories of research and understanding into the causes of the baffling problem of the making and unmaking of criminal careers. With the Parole Board, in cooperation with the Department of Public Welfare, is placed the great responsibility of securing the protection of society through the rehabilitation of the criminal. That objective can only be obtained by placing the administration of the penal and reformatory institutions and of the parole system on a professional basis and by the introduction of scientific methods of treatment, |