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March 07, 2005
Boston Globe Editorial: The Role of Parole
March 7, 2005
AFTER YEARS in a holding pattern, an encouraging new role for parole in Massachusetts is starting to emerge. A bill filed recently by the Romney administration would mandate postrelease supervision for all of the roughly 20,000 inmates leaving state prisons and county jails each year. The initiative is carefully crafted and deserves the support of people on all sides of the criminal justice debate and both sides of the prison wall.
Prisoners in Massachusetts routinely ''wrap" their sentences, the phrase used for serving the maximum prison term without being released earlier contingent on parole or probation obligations. Several factors lead to this condition, including law enforcement hard-liners who stripped the funding for halfway houses, mandatory minimum sentences for drug crimes, and misguided prisoners who willingly choose longer sentences to escape supervision. It's a bad deal all around. About half of the former inmates reoffend within the first year. And many find themselves homeless, with no help in finding housing or getting a job.
Last year, a gubernatorial commission wisely called for mandatory postrelease supervision. Like other recommendations in the field of criminal justice, it seemed destined for oblivion. Instead, Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey, a criminologist, followed up with a bill to require former inmates to remain under supervision for 25 percent of their imposed sentences or a minimum of nine months. Job training, substance abuse counseling, and housing services would be coordinated in regional reentry centers. Healey estimates that a drop of each point in the recidivism rate could save $1 million in prison costs.
Success depends on several factors, not the least of which will be the state's commitment to fund adequate drug rehabilitation programs. The parole and probation departments must avoid turf battles. And officials will need to create a sensible system of graduated sanctions for former inmates who violate the terms of their release. A failed drug test, for example, should not be treated in the same manner as a felony arrest.
The legislation sidesteps the problem of mandatory drug sentencing laws that impose long prison terms on people with no prior convictions for violent offenses. That's politically expedient. But the creation of a system for mandatory postrelease supervision would provide the right opportunity to explore better and cheaper alternatives to this questionable sentencing policy.
Former inmates are hitting the streets without skills or direction. The postrelease supervision bill provides the bearings needed to put both them and the Commonwealth's corrections policy on the proper path.
© Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
Posted by lois at March 7, 2005 03:25 PM