Correctional Officer vs. Probation Officer

By Dr. Jarrod Sadulski  |  08/24/2026

Correctional officers and probation officers are both involved in the criminal field. However, there are distinct differences between these two roles.

What Does a Correctional Officer Do?

Correctional officers deal with law offenders who are in custody or being transported to court. They interact with offenders while awaiting arraignment or sentencing or while those inmates carry out their sentences.

Correctional officers typically work in municipal jails, county jails, or detention facilities. Other corrections officers may work in state or federal government prisons.

Correctional officers are responsible for several jobs, such as:

• Providing inmate security during incarceration
• Ensuring that contraband does not enter a prison facility
• Enforcing prison policies, procedures, and rules
• Fostering rehabilitation for offenders

How Correctional Officers Work with Correctional Treatment Specialists

Correctional officers often carry out the work of correctional treatment specialists. Correctional treatment specialists conduct risk and offender assessments to identify treatment and rehabilitation plans and community-based supervision. In addition, they have an active role in reentry planning, rehabilitation programs, and offender case management.

What Does a Probation Officer Do?

Probation officers ensure community safety. Probation officers work in what is commonly referred to as community corrections or community supervision. For example, probation officers manage and supervise offenders when a judge sentences an offender to probation.

For instance, judges sometimes impose probation under certain circumstances, such as a first-time offender or a criminal who has committed a minor crime. Offenders who fail to meet the conditions of probation may serve a prison sentence.

Probation serves an important role in promoting a court-approved rehabilitation plan, which includes ensuring compliance with court-ordered conditions such as:

• Community service
• Drug testing
• Victim restitution
• Mental health counseling
• Successful completion of anger management programs and substance abuse counseling
• No-contact orders

Probation officers commonly connect offenders with treatment providers, social work services, and other community-based services. They also ensure compliance with electronic monitoring and curfews.

Probation officers may engage in unscheduled home or workplace visits to ensure that the offender follows court-ordered conditions. In addition, they may interview probationers, prepare reports for the court to enable judges to determine compliance with court orders, and establish applicable mandatory rehabilitation plans.

Probation Officers and Parole Officers

Although both probation and parole officers work within the criminal justice system, they have different responsibilities. A probation officer works with someone who has been sentenced to probation, but the option to enter jail is still present if the offender does not conform to court-ordered conditions.

By contrast, a parole officer works with an offender who has committed a serious crime and who has been released from a prison prior to completing a full sentence. In this situation, the parole officer supervises the offender’s activities after release to ensure that the former inmate is adhering to court-ordered conditions.

Parole is a privilege that is extended to some convicted offenders following a parole board hearing. Parole is not guaranteed, however. When parole is granted by a state board, it enables an offender to complete their prison sentence under the close supervision of a parole officer with an understanding that parole violations will result in incarceration.

Common responsibilities for a parole officer include:

• Connecting a parolee with job training and other education
• Finding transitional housing opportunities
• Helping offenders become productive and law-abiding members of society

Parolees typically must report to their parole officers as prescribed in the parole conditions. Common duties of a parole officer include:

• Making home visits
• Meeting with their clients in their office
• Ensuring drug testing
• Preparing reports for parole boards and the courtroom

In essence, parole officers serve as case managers by ensuring that former inmates comply with the conditions set for parole and conducting investigations into suspected parole violations. The qualifications for probation or parole are very similar. In some cases, they are the same.

Qualifications Needed to Become a Correctional Officer

The qualifications to become a correctional officer vary by state and jurisdiction. Commonly, correctional officer applicants have a high school diploma or a college degree. In some cases, prior military experience can be used as an additional way to meet hiring qualifications.

Correctional officers go through a criminal background check, drug screening, and other tests to ensure that they have the right qualifications to become a correctional officer. They must also successfully complete formal training.

Correctional officers also require excellent verbal and written communication skills as well as emotional intelligence. Since dealing with difficult inmates in hostile environments is common for correctional officers, these skills are essential to communicate with inmates. Communication skills are also useful for de-escalating stressful or volatile situations in highly populated prisons and maintaining control of a prison facility with very limited equipment (such as pepper spray).

Qualifications Needed to Become a Probation Officer

The qualifications to become a probation officer are similar to a correctional officer. Candidates  must pass a background screening and drug screening, and they must also meet other agency hiring standards. Since probation officers commonly work with diverse populations, they need strong communications and problem-solving skills.

In most states, a bachelor’s degree is needed to be a probation officer. Aspiring probation officers often earn a criminal justice degree or a degree in a related field to pursue this type of job opportunity.

Why Correctional and Probation Officers Are Essential to Public Safety

Correctional officers and probation officers play different roles within the corrections field. However, their work ultimately helps to promote offender accountability, rehabilitate former inmates, and ensure greater public safety.

The Bachelor of Arts in Criminal Justice at APU

For adult learners who want to study criminal justice and upskill their knowledge and abilities, American Public University (APU) offers an online Bachelor of Arts in Criminal Justice. For this degree program, students can take courses such as corrections and incarceration, the criminal legal process, criminal law, and U.S. law enforcement. Students may also take courses in constitutional law, criminal profiling, criminology, and crime analysis.

This bachelor’s in criminal justice has four concentrations:

• General
• Entrepreneurship
• Maritime law enforcement
• Organizational law enforcement leadership

For more details, visit APU’s security and global studies degree program page.

Note: This degree program is not designed to meet the educational requirements for professional licensure or certification in any country, state, province, or other jurisdiction. This program has not been approved by any state professional licensing body and does not lead to any state-issued professional licensure.