Probation first developed in the United States when John Augustus, a Boston cobbler, persuaded a judge in the Boston Police Court in 1841 to give him custody of a convicted offender, a "drunkard", for a brief period and to help the man to appear rehabilitated by the time of sentencing.[4][5]
Even earlier, the practice of suspending a sentence was used as early as 1830 in Boston, Massachusetts, and became widespread in U.S. courts, although there was no statutory provision for such a practice. At first, judges, most notably Peter Oxenbridge Thatcher of Boston, used "release on recognizance" or bail and simply refrained from taking any further action. In 1878, the mayor of Boston hired a former police officer, the ironically named "Captain Savage", to become what many recognize as the first official probation officer.