How does probation work?

Probation is when a court puts a defendant on a series of programs and punishments instead of sending that defendant to prison. The defendant is regularly monitored by the probation department and has to comply with a long list of conditions – usually things like drug and alcohol testing, having a stable job, doing community service, not committing any crimes, reporting to the probation department at least once a month, and whatever else the court feels like is necessary based on the crime and defendant. There are two types of probation in Texas, regular probation and deferred adjudication.

Regular probation means that a defendant is given a specific number of years the defendant will go to prison if they violate their probation terms. However, by law, that number cannot be higher than ten years. For instance, a defendant put on regular probation would have a sentence that said something like “Seven years in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) probated for five years.” This would mean that the defendant will be on probation for five years, and if he messes up during those five years, he is looking at going to prison for seven years. This type of probation is a criminal conviction on the defendant’s record.

Deferred adjudication, on the other hand, is a little different. The only set number is how long the defendant will be on probation, and if he messes up (violates the terms of probation), then he can be sentenced to prison for any number of years based on the level of his crime.

For instance, let’s say someone committed a second- degree felony (punishable by 2-20 years in prison), and was placed on deferred adjudication for five years. If the defendant violates this probation, then the judge could send him to prison for up to twenty years because the original offense was a second- degree felony. The other benefit of deferred adjudication probation is that if the defendant successfully completes it, it is not a conviction on his record. This can be beneficial to people without criminal records when applying for college, jobs, etc. In that way, deferred adjudication can kind of cuts both ways – it is has a large benefit for people if they can turn around and not commit future crimes, but also carries a heavy punishment for people who mess up and don’t change their ways.