Cite as: 520 U. S. 143 (1997)
Opinion of the Court
apart from the specific terms of parole as it existed in Oklahoma, but not from the more general class of parole identified in Morrissey. None of the differences—real or imagined— supports a view of the Program as having been anything other than parole as described in Morrissey.
We first take up the phantom differences. We are told at the outset that the purposes of preparole and parole were different. Preparole was intended "to reduce prison overcrowding," while parole was designed "to help reintegrate the inmate into society." Reply Brief for Petitioners 10. This alleged difference is less than it seems. Parole could also be employed to reduce prison overcrowding, see Okla. Stat., Tit. 57, § 332.7(B) (Supp. 1990). And the Program's requirement that its participants work or attend school belies the notion that preparole was concerned only with moving bodies outside of teeming prison yards. In fact, in their brief below, petitioners described the Program as one in which the Department of Corrections "places eligible inmates into a community for the purpose of reintegration into society." Brief for Appellees in No. 95-5026 (CA10), p. 7, n. 2.
We are also told that "an inmate on the Program continues
to serve his sentence and receives earned credits . . . , whereas a parolee is not serving his sentence and, if parole is revoked, the parolee is not entitled to deduct from his sentence time spent on parole." Reply Brief for Petitioners 11. Our review of the statute in effect when respondent was released, however, reveals that a parolee was "entitled to a deduction from his sentence for all time during which he has been or may be on parole" and that, even when parole was revoked, the Board had the discretion to credit time spent on parole against the sentence. Okla. Stat., Tit. 57, § 350 (Supp. 1990).
Petitioners next argue that preparolees, unlike parolees, remained within the custody of the Department of Corrections. This is said to be evidenced by respondent's having
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