Georgia Parole Board
and Georgia Tech
Author: Steve Hayes, Director of Communications, State Board of Pardons and Paroles
The State Board of Pardons and Paroles has engaged the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) to
complete a research project with a goal of improving public safety.
“We want more successful outcomes when releasing offenders on parole,” states Executive Director of Parole
Chris Barnett.
Barnett, who is in charge of the day-to-day operations of the Parole Board, says a parole success rate that al-
ready is among the nation’s leaders, can still be improved upon.
“The Parole Board in Georgia is not simply satisfied with being among the leaders in parole success,” states
Barnett. “Each additional success means improved public safety. This is cutting edge research and hopefully will
lead to new approaches resulting in more parole successes.”
The “cutting edge” public safety project involves research scientists at Georgia Tech working with staff from
the State Board of Pardons and Paroles.
While current assessment tools will continue to be used to determine how much time an individual should
serve prior to parole, this project seeks to include supplemental data surrounding the imposition of pre and
post release conditions that would ensure success variables are present during an offender’s reentry phase.
Likewise, the joint research project involves identifying factors related to offenders that may cause the offender
to fail compliance while on parole.
The project scope involves identifying factors among similarly situated individuals that will lead to more parole
success. It is anticipated, there may be hundreds of different variables examined to determine their impact on
the success of an individual. Once these variables or factors have been identified, a scientific assessment tool
will be developed by Georgia Tech utilizing the statistically significant variables. The new assessment tool will
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