In 1984, 70 percent of parolees successfully completed their parole term. By 2002, that number had dropped to 45 percent. Put another way, in 2002, 45 percent of parolees - more than 200,000 individuals - returned to prison for parole violations or for committing new crimes. There is no conclusive research indicating whether noncompliance with technical conditions of release signals a pattern of criminal behavior and that returning such individuals to incarceration might prevent future crime; but of the parole violators returning to prison, only one-third return for committing a new crime - the remainder return for a technical parole violation. ^[1]   An additional nine percent of parolees - more than 40,000 - are classified as on "abscond" status at any given time, meaning they cannot be found and have lost contact with their parole officers. ^[2]