Cite as: 529 U. S. 694 (2000)
Opinion of the Court
to supervised release following imprisonment was parole, which by definition was a release under supervision of a parole officer following service of some term of incarceration. Courts have commented on the similarity. See, e. g., Meeks, 25 F. 3d, at 1121 ("[S]upervised release is essentially similar to parole"); United States v. Paskow, 11 F. 3d 873, 881 (CA9 1993) ("Supervised release and parole are virtually identical systems").
In thinking about this case, it is striking that the provisions of the former parole scheme dealing with the consequences of violating parole conditions repeatedly used the verb "revoke." See, e. g., 18 U. S. C. § 4214(d)(5) (1982 ed.) (repealed 1984, Pub. L. 98-473, §§ 218(a)(5), 235, 98 Stat. 2027, 2031) (revocation of parole); 21 U. S. C. § 841(c) (1982 ed.) (repealed 1984) (revocation of special parole). And yet there seems never to have been a question that a new term of parole could follow a prison sentence imposed after revocation of an initial parole term.11 See, e. g., 28 CFR § 2.52(b)
11 The same is true of special parole, part of the required sentence for certain drug offenses. Though the special parole statute did not explicitly authorize reimposition of special parole after revocation of the initial term and reimprisonment, the Parole Commission required it. See 28 CFR § 2.57(c) (1999). Some courts have recently decided that this regulation is inconsistent with 21 U. S. C. § 841(c) (1982 ed.), see, e. g., Evans v. United States Parole Comm'n, 78 F. 3d 262 (CA7 1996), but this does not affect the backdrop against which Congress legislated in 1984.
As for probation, the sentencing court's power to order a new term following revocation was the subject of some disagreement. The pre-Guidelines statute authorized the court to "revoke the probation and . . . impose any sentence which might originally have been imposed." 18 U. S. C. § 3653 (1982 ed.) (repealed). The statute thus clearly specified that the options for postrevocation sentencing were those available at the original sentencing; courts disputed only whether probation was a "sentence" that could be imposed. See O'Neil, 11 F. 3d, at 298-299 (collecting cases). The dispute over what counted as a sentence does not affect the broader point that a court's powers at the original sentencing are the baseline from which powers at resentencing are determined. Nor is our
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