Ashley's Comments on Meeting with Professor Pank

On November 3, 2009, Errol and I met with Professor Karen Pank at her office in Sacramento. She works as a lobbyist and attorney for several important players in the law enforcement arena. Her clients include the Chief Probation Officers of California; California Probation, Parole and Correctional Association; and the California State Sheriff’s Association. Additionally, Ms. Pank is a visiting professor at UC Davis School of Law, and she is my professor for Legislative Process. Because of her qualifications and knowledge, I felt we would greatly benefit from speaking with her.

Professor Pank provided us with helpful information regarding each one of our proposals. Out of the three, she liked the first one the most: creating differing levels of parole monitoring. Other states have found this to be a valuable way of doing business. Basically, some lower-risk parolees can be placed on “technical” parole, but are not actually heavily monitored. Doing so frees up time and resources for parole officers to monitor higher risk parolees. She said that we are moving towards this practice because it can lower the cost of parole. However, one of the downsides to this system is that the lower risk parolees oftentimes need more supervision because they are on the cusp of reoffending. Moreover, these parolees would receive very little attention.

After speaking with Professor Pank, proposals 2 (discretionary parole) and 3 (utilizing other social services and community groups) seem difficult to achieve. Proposal 2 faces difficulties against the public, because many people see this as “early release” and then think of cases like the Garrido case. Proposal 3 also faces challenges because it can be very difficult for parolees to receive social services, even government funded services. Professor Pank provided a helpful example. Prop 63 was enacted to increase funding for mental health services through a tax increase on the wealthiest Californians. However, parolees were expressly prohibited from receiving such funding, even though they are often the people who need such services the most.

Professor Pank also noted the need for reform at the probation level. Approximately 90% of state prisoners were on probation at one time prior to going to prison. The state could save tons of money by intervening early on and providing social services when the local authorities discover a problem. She explained her opinion that local agencies are often better suited to deal with local problems. While probation reaches past the scope of our topic, I thought this was an important point.

We also asked Professor Pank about quotas on officer caseloads. She explained that parole officers would be against such a proposal because it could lead to them being paid less.