Rep. Chris England, D-Tuscaloosa, presents a bill in the Alabama House of Representatives on April 25, 2024 at the Alabama Statehouse in Montgomery, Alabama. England wants to standardize the guidelines related to safety risk for people incarcerated when deciding to release them in the public. (Brian Lyman/Alabama Reflector)
The Alabama Commission on Re-Entry Tuesday debated the state’s parole guidelines and how frequently the Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles deviates from them, an issue that has drawn more attention from lawmakers in recent months.
Members of the commission, which was formed to find avenues to reduce the state’s recidivism rate among the formerly incarcerated, compared the standards and guidelines that the parole board uses to decide parole grants against the classification system that the Alabama Department of Corrections uses to evaluate whether people are a public safety risk for its work release program.
Each system is meant to determine a person’s risk for reoffending after release, though they are not necessarily compatible. The parole board has denied applications from individuals that the Department of Corrections deemed eligible for work release, allowing them into the public to perform a job before returning to the prison facility to be incarcerated.
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Criminal justice reform advocates have been urging lawmakers to pass legislation aimed at reforming the parole system to allow for greater oversight of the parole board, who had been granting parole at low rates.
The parole rate fell to 7% in 2023, according to an analysis of parole figures by the ACLU of Alabama. The rate increased to 20% as of last October.
Lawmakers at a meeting of the Joint Prison Oversight Committee that month directed pointed questions at Leigh Gwathney, the chair of the Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles about parole rates and whether members are considering the parole guidelines when making decisions concerning applicants.
Rep. Chris England, D-Tuscaloosa, has filed legislation, HB 40 for the current session, that would require the parole to follow guidelines for parole and require them to explain parole denials to those who would otherwise qualify.
It would also allow applicants to appeal the decision of the parole board should they be denied.
England has introduced versions of the bill over the last several years, but it has failed to advance. England brought the issue to the attention of members of the Reentry Commission as part of a discussion at the end of a presentation by the Council of State Governments Justice Center on services provided to those on parole or probation.
The group found inconsistencies in data quality as well as structural barriers for the formerly incarcerated in obtaining housing, vital documents like driver’s licenses and access to behavioral counseling.
“One of the things I am interested in is creating an institutional standard for risk assessments, so that the same person is not looked at four different ways to determine to be eligible for certain things because of the person who is making that final decision,” England said.
He went on to say that the standards, be they parole or the one that Corrections uses to determine if a person is eligible for work release, are inconsistent, leading to disparate outcomes and making it harder to gauge the effectiveness of a program.
“I know Commissioner Hamm does a good job of determining who is on work release and who shouldn’t,” said Cam Ward, director of the Alabama Bureau of Pardons and Paroles and chair of the Reentry Commission. “He has a good classification system, and I think it works.”
Ward then related the classification to the parole board and how it could be applied to determine fitness for parole.
“It is a great debate, but I think Commissioner Hamm does a pretty good job at analyzing a person’s minimum risk,” Ward said.
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