No Names Please

I get hand-written letters from the penitentiary a half dozen times a year or so. I read them and often do not respond since I find the allegations so outlandish or unbelievable I fear my response would be like throwing gasoline on a smoldering fire. I will look into the concerns in my own way.  But my time on the Joint Finance and Appropriations Committee (JFAC) made me sit up and pay attention to a recent letter. It described problems in a parole hearing. It made me reflect on the JFAC presentations I had heard in the last two years from the Commission on Pardons and Parole(CPP). At the annual hearing the agency makes their case for funding. Committee members may ask the presenters questions, but JFAC doesn’t take public testimony at this time. We must rely on the presentations and any information we can glean from our own investigations.

I write this with no names to protect the individuals involved. But my job as a legislator on JFAC is to decide how the taxpayer’s dollar should be spent, not blame someone for mismanagement. We cannot hire and fire; that power lies in the executive branch. The commissioners and the director are appointed by the governor.  So I struggle with my role here. At this point I just want to tell this story. Soon I will have to decide what to do with what power I have. I have my responsibility within my role; others have theirs.

The five member Idaho CPP was established in the 1940’s. The Idaho Constitution says the authority over prisoners on parole lies with the Board of Corrections (BOC), but both websites claim the CPP is an independent body from the Board of Corrections, and in my opinion, the statute isn’t clear.  I cannot find a clear delineation of which entity has what responsibility. I fear we, the legislature, the designers of this system have created a structural problem. There can be multiple reasons why a system isn’t working; inadequate support, improper personnel, or faulty structural design. A bill that is proposed this session tries to address this structural, statutory problem, and I support it, but I fear such remedy may not be enough.

The decision to create the CPP was a policy decision 60 years ago that honestly makes good sense. I can imagine a prisoner and a warden not getting along, some personal conflict, so an independent body to review the application for parole, without such a history might give a semi-judicial distance. Think of the Shawshank Redemption scene. The intent was, I believe, to create an opportunity for a fair and just hearing.

But I have grave concerns about how the Idaho Commission on Pardons and Parole functions. It is hard to be just and be dysfunctional. I first became aware of these issues when I was running for office in 2010 and was made aware of Idaho’s high incarceration rate. I did some online research and ran into two studies with many follow up reports from the Office of Performance Evaluations (OPE) that mentioned long delays from time of eligibility for parole and the actual parole hearing.  This means more time in prison for inmates and more taxpayer cost, as well as delayed justice. Then, I got appointed to JFAC in 2013 and heard my first JFAC presentation for CPP. The director showed a simple bar graph that indicated the average wait time from when prisoners were eligible for parole and when they had actually had a hearing had decreased by 12% from 2010 to 2012. I would imagine the goal would be to reduce this number to as close to zero as possible, indeed the OPE study showed that even with the improvement in 2012,  57% of prisoners had a delayed parole hearing at a cost to the state of $7.2 million. I was even more troubled by this conclusion in the report:

Unless the commission makes substantive changes in the way it manages offender data, we believe a third follow-up review will be of little use and suggest that the Oversight Committee close this report.

After the 2013 budget presentation I asked the committee leadership and was assured there were plans for change at the commission, so I supported the budget request.

Now, in 2014 we have another CPP budget presentation and request. I asked the director if there was any more data on the time from eligibility for parole to the time of the hearing. There was no data available I was told. There was also a budget request to pay an outside contractor to get their minutes reviewed and available for publication. All meeting minutes should be reviewed in a timely fashion by any public agency and approved so they can be available should there be questions about what happened. I asked why the amount was $400,000. That seemed like a lot, how many minutes needed review? The director said they were four years behind in their minutes review.

After the hearing I was again assured by leadership that changes would be made in the commission. But that decision comes from the governor, not the legislature.

Now I come to the letter from the inmate, four pages, both sides, hand printed on lined paper, with the Parole Commission response stapled to the back. He has been sentenced for aggravated battery to a three year fixed sentence, and three years indeterminate and was eligible for parole September 2013. At his parole hearing (August 2013, thus before his due date)  he had an employer show up who had a job for him taking care of pheasants and chukars that were raised for a hunting operation. The employer was given 1 minute to speak. The parole board denied the application, the inmate said because they were concerned he might be close to guns at the hunting operation, a parole restriction. So he can apply for parole again in a year. He has completed his GED in prison, as well as a couple computer classes and Commercial Drivers license training. His “institutional behavior” has classified him as “a minimum”. The employer changed the operation so he would only take care of the birds, never be close to the hunters who come out mostly on weekends. But he must wait another year, August 2014, for another review. And he was so frustrated with the process he said he might just “top out”, meaning finish the full 6 year obligation.

My wife read the letter and commented that the inmate never acknowledged his guilt, said he was sorry for his crime. I remember Morgan Freeman talking about “rehabilitation” in Shawshank Redemption. I appreciated her input, but in my opinion, I am looking for rehabilitation in a government agency. And I don’t hear anyone saying they are sorry.