Two aging inmates in a prison in San Luis Obispo, California. Maryland lawmakers are considering several parole reform bills this year, including two little-noticed bills that would reform the parole process itself. (Photo by Andrew Burton/Getty Images)
Amid high-profile proposals to make it easier for long-serving inmates to seek sentence reductions and to make work safer for parole agents are two largely overlooked efforts that supporters say are no less important: Reforming the parole process itself.
“Looking at the process of parole may seem, you know, not as big, but it is, especially for those incarcerated. Just trying to increase … a little bit more transparency and predictability,” said Del. Elizabeth Embry (D-Baltimore City). “I’m just saying [there’s] room for improvement, and we hope this bill will advance us toward that improvement.”
Embry is the sponsor of House Bill 1147, which calls for an annual report by the Maryland Parole Commission breaking down the number of cases it has heard and approved in a year, broken down by race, and requiring that inmates who are rejected for parole get a report detailing the reasons why. Currently, they have to ask for that information.
Del. N. Scott Phillips’ (D-Baltimore County) House Bill 1156 would increase the number of Parole Commission members from the current 1o to at least 15 but no more than 20. More importantly, those members, currently nominated by the secretary of the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, would be nominated instead by the governor, from a list of candidates drawn up by a new commission made up of law enforcement officials, public defenders, health and education officials and more. The Parole Commission nominees would still need to be confirmed by the Senate.
Both Phillips’ and Embry’s bills are scheduled to be heard March 4 before the House Judiciary Committee.
“Parole [reform] will be something we will definitely take a look at,” Del. Luke Clippinger (D-Baltimore City), chair of the committee, said in an interview earlier this month.
Clippinger said the two bills “generally, but not specifically” resemble legislative priorities from Campaign Zero, a national social justice organization led by a Maryland native DeRay Mckesson.
Mckesson, one of the leaders of the Black Lives Matter movement, served on a Maryland task force in 2023 to evaluate data collection and policies within Maryland’s state’s attorneys’ offices, and to assess whether prosecutors’ practices are fair and equitable.
Mckesson said attempts to reform of the Parole Commission are welcome.
“We need to modernize the structure of the Parole Commission. So few people understand the parole process. We just want fairness in the parole system,” he said in an interview earlier this month.
The Parole Commission, a part of the department within correctional services, is a full-time body that holds parole hearings on a case-by-case basis to determine whether those serving six months or longer should be granted parole. The commission chair draws a $132,000 salary and commissioners are paid $117,000, according to the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services.
The 10-member board is scheduled to meet every other Wednesday but currently it has three vacancies. The department declined comment on the two latest bills, except to say that it “recognizes the critical role legislation plays in building a more just and effective correctional system in Maryland.”
Parole reform
Embry’s bill calls for additional data that is not currently required in the commission’s annual report of its work to the governor, such as figures “disaggregated by race of relevant incarcerated individuals.” Some of the other information must highlight the number of cases in which the commission granted or denied parole; the number of people granted administrative release; the number of parole hearings and purpose of each hearing; and the number of people eligible for parole but never granted it.
Hearing examiners who review each incarcerated individual’s case and make a recommendation to the commission for or against parole would have one week, instead of the current three, to deliver a report the to the inmate, the commission and the Department of Corrections, spelling out the reasons for the recommendation. In addition to including the “reasoning and justifications for the recommendation,” an individual denied parole would have to get another hearing scheduled “not later than two years” from the denial. Currently, there’s no requirement to when a subsequent parole hearing must be scheduled.
YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE.
The bill also specifies that, “The Commission does not have the authority to permanently deny parole.”
“There’s a need for [parole] improvement and we hope this bill will advance us toward that,” Embry said in a recent interview.
Phillips’ bill would take hearing examiners out of the process of recommending parole approval or denial. Under the current law, the commission can skip a hearing on a parole case if there are no objections from the inmate or the department, in which case the hearing examiner’s recommendation become the final decision.
Phillips’ bill would also alter not only who serves on the Parole Commission, but how members are appointed for a six-year term.
When there’s a vacancy on the commission, a 12-member panel would submit at least three nominees to the governor. Those panel members would include the public defender, president of the Maryland State’s Attorney’s Association, the executive director of the Maryland Police Training and Standards Commission and four appointees of the governor – three from the general public and a prisoners’ rights advocate.
Some advocates noted the Parole Commission should diversify its panel. DPSCS confirmed that three former department employees are now parole commissioners: Chair Ernest Eley, Robyn Lyles and Lisa Vronch.
Second Look Act draws hours of testimony in House Judiciary Committee
Maryland is currently one of just four states, along with Kansas, Michigan and Ohio, that do not allow the governor to directly choose person to serve on a parole commission.
“This is to start a conversation about really looking at how the Parole Commission operates, particularly who’s on the Parole Commission and what workload do they have right now,” Phillips said in a recent interview. “Really having people to be a little more accountable in the process.”
Clippinger said he wants to see action this year on one parole measure that has been reviewed for several years — removing the governor from the medical parole process.
That bill, sponsored since 2022 by Del. J. Sandy Bartlett (D-Anne Arundel), vice chair of the Judiciary committee, will be heard Tuesday by Judiciary. A companion Senate bill, sponsored by Sen. C. Anthony Muse (D-Prince George’s), was held Feb. 13. The measure passed the Senate last year, but did not get out of Judiciary.
“We want to get the medical piece done this year. We’re going to try and make that happen,” Clippinger said, standing near Bartlett.
“We’re going to get it done,” Bartlett said.