The duties of those first Massachusetts parole officers included helping released prisoners find jobs and providing them with tools, clothing, and transportation at state expense. Although in the past 175 years there have been numerous legislative changes affecting parole in Massachusetts, our core mission and objective remain essentially unchanged.
Today, the Massachusetts Parole Board is an agency within the Executive Office of Public Safety. We have primary responsibility of identifying those parole eligible offenders for whom there is sufficient indications that confinement has served its purpose, setting appropriate conditions for parole, and enhancing public safety through the responsible reintegration of these individuals to the community. The Intensive Parole for Sex Offenders Program supervises and manages this special group of parolees utilizing a strict set of conditions including curfews and polygraph examinations. The introduction of Regional Reentry Centers will also help with the reintegration process.