Parole or Not to Parole: A question for 21st Century America

Beginning in 2002, 16 states had abolished parole discretionary release from prison by a parole board for nearly all types of offenders. Currently, many other states have curtailed the power of parole authorities by decreasing the number of parole eligible offenders and by eliminating parole entirely for certain offenses, most commonly violent felonies or sexual offenses. A debate now exists among various interest groups and politicians over whether parole should be further curtailed or whether more discretion should be given back to parole boards. Overshadowing these debates are increases in prison populations resulting in overcrowding, the skyrocketing financial costs of maintain prisons, and the general sentiments of the American public.

While many states have curtailed the power of parole boards, states have also enacted truth-in-sentencing laws, which require those convicted of select violent crimes to serve 85 percent of the announced prison sentence. This development coincided with the passage of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act (“the Crime Act”) also amended in 1996, which aimed to promote reform by providing states with grants to expand their prison capacity if they required violent offenders to serve at least 85 percent of their sentence. To meet these sentencing laws, states have limited the powers of parole boards to set release dates and to award good time and gain time (time off for good behavior or participation in work programs).

The movement away from parole coincides with general opinions in America regarding its faith in prison rehabilitation. Both political liberals and conservatives favored proposals curtailing the power of parole boards. Those on the left were concerned with the liberal use of parole, which could result in dramatically different sentences for nearly the same exact crime. On the other hand, conservatives were concerned the parole boards were simply too lenient. The general public also lost faith in rehabilitative nature of American prisons and according to Harris polls taken between 1970 and 1995, there was a 43 percent decline in those that felt prison’s primary purpose was rehabilitation.

Underscoring the movement away from discretionary parole is a series of tragic incidents, where parolees committed further violent acts on the public. For instance, on Father’s day in 1986, Richmond police officer, George Taylor, father of two daughters, was shot and killed one day before his fortieth birthday by Wayne DeLong a convicted murderer, who was released early and served only a fraction of his sentence. In 1991, the same happened to Leo Webb, a baker and a man who liked helping people, including James Steele a man on parole for a malicious wounding. Steele, shot Webb to death at his bakery, took his money and went out partying. Perhaps the most shocking case was that of Phillip Garrido, who was convicted to 50 years in jail for the 1977 kidnapping of a woman. In that case, Garrido kidnapped the woman and took her to a storage facility and repeatedly raped over the course of 5 hours. However, Garrido was released in 1988 by a parole board, after just 10 years in jail. In 1991 he kidnapped 11-year-old Jaycee Lee Dugard and held her for over 18 years and fathered two children with her, who he hid at his home.

Supporters of the abolition of parole claim that eliminating parole ultimately makes society a safer place. Former governor of Virginia George Allen ran on this platform by claiming that the elimination of parole would save both lives and money. According to his statistics, more than 4,300 felony crimes would have been prevented between 1986 and 1993 if parole had been eliminated in Virginia. Likewise, at the time of implementing Allen’s parole reforms, he estimated that over the next 10 years in Virginia 3,700 women will be saved from rape, 119,000 felonies will be prevented, 475 lives saved, and over $2.7 billion would be saved in direct costs.

Proponents of discretionary parole also cite a host of statistical evidence in support of retaining parole. In an article by Joan Petersilia, a professor of criminology at University California at Irvine, Petersilia argues that discretionary parole should be reinstated in all 16 states that abolished it. Her research suggests that the public was misinformed about the nature of abolishing parole and claims that data shows that inmates released on discretionary parole actually serve longer sentences, on average, than those released mandatorily. Likewise, she suggests that discretionary parole focuses prison staff and resources on planning for release, rather than having a policy that is unconcerned with release. Other research indicates that inmates released by parole boards had increased success rates (lower recidivism rates) than those released on mandatory parole.

The debate over parole will continue into the 21^st century, as victim’s rights groups, prisoner’s rights groups, prison guard unions, police officer unions, criminologists, sociologists, prosecutors, defense attorneys and lawmakers, among many other special interests and the general public try to determine the best course for our society. Often values such as rehabilitation end up conflicting with those like safety. While there seems to be a trend moving away from discretionary parole, there is a solid movement which is attempting to re-implement discretionary reform in these states. At this time, however, there appears to be no general consensus on the issue.