American Exceptionalism in Community Supervision

This chapter explores whether the concept of American exceptionalism applies to the discourse and conduct of community supervision in its main variant—probation—when comparing the United States with Europe. Community supervision in the United States does not serve merely as a stand-alone punishment. It functions frequently as a much-less-acknowledged “front door” to incarceration due to failures in its conduct. It is often used after incarceration terms or as an “elastic frame” in which additional punishments—such as economic sanctions, liberty restrictions, and coerced treatment—can be levied. This chapter's approach is to compare US and European probation through the use of five indicia, or “markers,” to gauge the penal scope and shape of probation. The markers provide criteria to assess the liberty restrictions imposed on offenders.