The difference between a probation officer and a parole officer is that a probation officer typically deals with people who have committed petty crimes and or is released from jail. On the other hand a parole officer is persons who deal with people who have committed larger and more serious crimes and is being released from prison. The two are similar because they are both supervision programs set in place for people who have committed crimes. Below I have a detailed information of the two terms and definitions of both listed obtained from the Bureau of justice statistics with further explanation
Probation
Probation refers to adult offenders whom courts place on supervision in the community through a probation agency, generally in lieu of incarceration. However, some jurisdictions do sentence probationers to a combined short-term incarceration sentence immediately followed by probation, which is referred to as a split sentence. Probationers can have a number of different supervision statuses including active supervision, which means they are required to regularly report to a probation authority in person, by mail, or by telephone. Some probationers may be on an inactive status which means they are excluded from regularly reporting, and that could be due to a number of reasons. For instance, some probationers may be placed on inactive status immediately because the severity of the offense was minimal or some may receive a reduction in supervision and therefore may be moved from an active to inactive status.
Parole
Parole refers to criminal offenders who are conditionally released from prison to serve the remaining portion of their sentence in the community. Prisoners may be released to parole by a parole board decision (discretionary release/discretionary parole), according to provisions of a statute (mandatory release/mandatory parole), through other types of post-custody conditional supervision, or as the result of a sentence to a term of supervised...