What Happens if You Violate Probation in California?
Probation is often offered to defendants throughout California as an alternative punishment to time in jail or prison. As a more lenient form of punishment, defendants are expected to understand that probation is a privilege, not a right, and therefore must uphold the terms of their probation. Whether you are performing informal or formal probation, there are consequences, sometimes severe, for probation violations. Informal vs. Formal Probation There are two types of probation that can be assigned to a defendant, depending on the severity of his/her crime, including informal and formal probation. Informal probation is unsupervised and only requires periodic court appearances to let the judge know about the progress of the probation. Informal probation is generally granted to people who have committed non-violent misdemeanors. Alternately, formal probation requires registry…