After being found guilty of committing a criminal act, you may wish to receive any other punishment besides serving jail or prison time. This is because you may automatically understand just how much time spent away in jail or prison will disrupt your life as you once knew it. With this, you may be desperate for an alternate option to pay for your wrongful act, whether it be a probation or parole order instead. With that being said, please follow along to find out the difference between a probation and parole order and how a proficient Morristown criminal defense lawyer at Graves Andrews, LLC can help you be granted either one.
What is the difference between a probation and parole order?
Simply put, probation and parole are both forms of rehabilitation commonly used as alternatives to jail or prison time. With that, both come with the possibility of an appointed officer to monitor you, along with strict terms and conditions you must comply with in order to maintain this privilege of remaining in the community. However, there are key differences between the two.
On the one hand, the New Jersey criminal judge handling your case proceedings may impose a probation order in place of a jail or prison sentence. That said, though, they may also impose it as part of a split sentence. So, they may order you to serve a term of incarceration of up to one year, then you are to serve a term of probation.
On the other hand, the judge may order parole as a supervised, early release from jail or prison. In other words, parole is something that may only apply to you if you are a currently incarcerated individual. This is while probation may be relevant regardless of whether you never went to jail or prison or you already served a partial sentence.
What can I do to be granted a probation or parole order?
If you have yet to be sentenced for your crime, you may attempt to avoid jail or prison time and receive probation instead by participating in a pre-trial intervention program. Of note, you may be eligible to terminate your probation early once you serve at least half of the probation time in your sentence.
Contrastingly, if you are already serving time in jail or prison, you may petition for parole by seeking attendance in the Intensive Supervision Program. With this, though, you must have already served at least six months of your sentence and within nine months of your earliest possible parole eligibility date.
Going about your criminal defense should not be done without the wise legal counsel of a talented Morristown criminal defense lawyer. So please call to schedule your initial consultation with us at Graves Andrews, LLC today.
