These include Norway, Denmark, Great Britain, West Germany, and Belgium. Furthermore, particular attention is devoted to Sweden, Finland, and the Netherlands, which have moved in new directions in penal policy. In Great Britain and West Germany, parole procedures are used as a means of controlling inmate conduct. Practices in these two countries neither remedy any of the complaints expressed about parole in the United States nor use any feature of parole or parole supervision that would be regarded as innovative. In addition, no empirical evidence has been produced in either country indicating that parole achieves anything more than the inducement of inmate conformity to prison regulations. In Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Belgium, and the Netherlands, parole is awarded more or less automatically at the two-thirds point of determinate sentences that are short by American standards. In Sweden and the Netherlands, the conduct of inmates in prison has no bearing upon parole release decisions. For all six of these countries, the major areas of controversy relate to the abolition of the few areas of parole discretion that remain: for example, parole supervision is under scrutiny on the grounds that postrelease services offered by parole and aftercare personnel are not accepted by or helpful to offenders. Other features that have affected parole include the use of free release furloughs which permit inmates to find jobs and housing and to get reacquainted with the outside world and the use of citizen volunteers or private agencies as parole supervisors. In short, the basis for parole as it has been established in most U.S. correctional systems has been found to be faulty. Footnotes are included. (Author abstract modified)