Massachusetts developed the first state-wide probation system in 1880, and by 1920, 21 other states had followed suit. With the passage of the National Probation Act on March 5, 1925, signed by President
Calvin Coolidge, the U.S.
Federal Probation Service was established. On the state level, pursuant to the Crime Control and Consent Act of 1936, a group of states entered into an agreement wherein they would supervise probationers and parolees who reside in each other's jurisdictions on each other's behalf. for each other.
Known as the Interstate Compact For the Supervision of Parolees and Probationers, this agreement was originally signed by 25 states in 1937. By 1951, all the states in the United States of America had a working probation system and ratified the Interstate Compact Agreement. In 1959, the new states of
Alaska and
Hawaii, the Commonwealth of
Puerto Rico, and the territories of the
Virgin Islands,
Guam, and
American Samoa ratified the act as well