Taking the country as a whole, I fear that the chief criticism to be made of the organization of parole systems is that most parole officers are expected to cover too large areas and to look after too many cases. This brings us to the fourth principle which we noted as wise to follow in the organization of probation work, and which it would seem, should apply also in parole work. We should avoid unnecessary overlapping. If only one parole officer is needed in a community, why have several? Under the present system in New York State, if each of five institutions--(each with its own parole officer)--paroles a person to the same locality, it would be necessary from time to time for five different parole officers, each attached to a different institution, to go to that locality, each officer to see and inquire about a different person on parole. How much simpler and more effective it would be to have one officer in that vicinity who could look after persons paroled to there from any and all institutions. Volunteers cannot be depended upon; we must have paid officers. Each institution, however, cannot provide a special paid parole officer in each locality. Economy would require that so far as possible all institutions use the same parole officer. Now if it is wasteful and undesirable to employ two or more probation officers to serve in a territory where one could do the work, and if it is wasteful and undesirable to employ two or more parole officers to serve in a territory where one could do the work, why should we employ in a given area one probation officer to supervise persons on probation, and one or more parole officers to perform practically the same kind of work with respect to persons on parole, provided the work of all these officers could be done equally well by only one officer? In most communities there are not enough parole cases to make it practical to employ a parole officer to deal exclusively with parole cases. In fact, most small places have few, if any, persons on parole at a given time. The local city or county probation officers are already there, and could generally take over such parole cases as require their attention. Except in the few very large centers where there may be enough parole cases to require the entire time of a parole officer, the most rational way, in my judgment, of securing the desirable oversight of those on probation and parole, and of avoiding unnecessary duplication of effort, is to use the local probation officers for both sets of offenders.