These functions are seen as an effort to balance the personal needs of offenders with the public needs of the society against which they have transgressed. The Marxist concepts of social practice, ideology, and politics are used to demonstrate that care and control are constituents of a State-sponsored political practice--discipline. The probationer or parolee becomes a subjugated subject through supportive surveillance. Examples from expositions by practitioners and policy-makers on the care and control functions are used to demonstrate the inadequacy of most views on the subject. Authors considered include D. Mathieson, who identified three approaches to probation and parole as punitive, psychoanalytic treatment, and sociological-political; R. Harris, who viewed offenders as a deprived group in society; W. Limont, who saw the role of the probation officer as instilling clients with a sense of moral and social values; and others. Two basic models, the juridical model and the pathological model, are identified and compared. A case history is used to demonstrate the various approaches supported by experts. Thirty-seven references are listed.