Carl Strock THE VIEW FROM HERE Parole? Let’s see, how does that work? Carl Strock can be reached at 395-3085 or by e-mail at carlstrock@dailygazette.com.
I see that more prison inmates are being released on parole these days after serving the minimum end of their sentences and some of our state senators would like an explanation. I guess I would like an explanation too, though not necessarily for the same reason as the senators. Their point of view seems to be the one that was held by former Gov. George Pataki, namely that people convicted of violent felonies should never get out. If a judge sentenced some guy to 15 years to life, for example, with the understanding that if the guy kept his nose clean in prison he would be able to get out after 15, forget it. The job of the Parole Board was simply to turn the guy down and keep him there forever, which made the job of Parole Board members very easy. My own point of view, which carries little weight, is that inmates ought to be evaluated according to the law, and if they have maintained a good record, if they have job offers and family support on the outside, they ought to at least be considered for release under supervision. At a Senate hearing the other day, Denise O’Donnell, commissioner of criminal justice services, testified that that is exactly the direction given to the Parole Board by the administration of Gov. Eliot Spitzer — “nothing more, nothing less … to function strictly within the confines of the law.” Functioning thus, any parole board would clearly release more inmates than under a policy of automatically turning them down. So it makes sense that releases would have gone up in the first year of the Spitzer administraton, as indeed they have. What’s puzzling is that releases were already going up in the fi nal year of the Pataki administration. In 2005, Pataki’s penultimate year as governor, only 10 serious criminals were released on parole at their first application, after serving their minimum sentences, but the next year, Pataki’s last, that number went up to 20. Then in the first 11 months of 2007, Gov. Spitzer’s first year, the number went up to 40. To put those numbers in perspective, also in the first 11 months of last year, 844 serious criminals were denied parole. Do you think that out of a total of 884 inmates seeking parole in an 11-month period, 40 might have deserved it? It doesn’t seem implausible to me, though for people who have made a political career out of being tough on crime it was reason enough for calling the commissioner of criminal justice services on the carpet and demanding an explanation. I noticed they did not demand an explanation for the rise during the last year of Pataki’s administration, nor did they demand an explanation for all the inmates who were turned down during the Pataki years on no more grounds than the seriousness of the “instant offense,” as the Parole Board always put it. These were inmates who in some cases had undergone all the recommended training, therapy, and whatever else was offered, who had recommendations from chaplains and social workers, and who in all cases had served their minimum sentences. The senators weren’t concerned about that. They were concerned about why 40 of 844 serious criminals got out last year. A good answer might have been, because they served their minimum sentences as decided by a judge and met various other requirements set by you, in law. But of course we know this is a political issue. It’s tough-oncrime vs. soft-on-crime, which often translates into Republican vs. Democrat, and the devil take the hindmost. As for Gov. Pataki’s policy, I re- alize he never issued any orders to the Parole Board to automatically reject applications, but that’s not the way things work. He frequently and publicly denounced parole and argued for fixed sentences as opposed to ranges like 15 years to life, and he’s the one who appointed the members of the Parole Board to their $100,000-a-year positions. A member wouldn’t exactly need a personal telegram in order to get the message. And in case any member was so dense, or so rebellious, as not to do what was obviously expected, as in the case of the 1960s radical Kathy Boudin, that member was soon gone from his $100,000 gig, which is exactly what happened to those members who voted to release Boudin. So don’t pay attention to protestations that the Pataki administration had no such policy. Anyway, now the policy is apparently to follow the law, with the result that some few inmates are being released after serving their minimum time, and Republican senators are alarmed. They want to know what’s going on.
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