Families Against Mandatory Minimums (FAMM), the Massachusetts Bar Association, the Committee for Public Counsel Services (the state’s public defender agency) and the ACLU of Massachusetts recently spoke out about the dropping parole rates under the state’s reorganized Parole Board. We told Gov. Deval Patrick that his new appointees to the Board seem to be undermining certain 2010 drug sentencing reforms that he championed as well as his own legislative agenda for the current session of the Legislature. Our concerns were cited in articles by the Boston Globe and State House News Service and editorials by Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly (agreeing) and the Boston Herald (disagreeing).
Here’s our letter. You can decide for yourself.
Dear Governor Patrick:
On behalf of Families Against Mandatory Minimums (FAMM), the Massachusetts Bar Association, the Committee for Public Counsel Services and the ACLU of Massachusetts, we write to express our concerns about what appears to be the Parole Board’s current policy of significantly restricting parole. In our view, such a policy is contrary to the sentencing reforms enacted in 2010 and undermines some of the Administration’s current legislative priorities that we strongly support.
According to the Parole Board, as of July 2011 the parole rate for state prisoners had plummeted to 31% from the 58% annual paroling rate in 2010 and the 66% annual paroling rate in 2009. For county prisoners, the parole rate fell to 46% from the 2010 annual rate of 64% and the 2009 annual rate of 68%. At the time of the tragic events that led to changes at the Parole Board, Massachusetts had a 78% success rate for parolees – far greater than the national average.
2010 reforms. In 2009, we cheered the Administration’s sentencing reform bill, H.4108, which included parole eligibility for drug offenders serving mandatory minimum sentences. We were heartened by your willingness to recognize and your efforts to improve the well-documented failings of our mandatory minimum drug sentencing laws. In 2010, the Legislature put considerable time and effort into crafting a compromise on parole eligibility for drug offenders. The result was a significant step forward – a new law allowing county prisoners to be eligible for parole if their drug offenses did not involve guns, violence or children and if they did not direct others in the sale of drugs. Families across the Commonwealth were thrilled that their loved ones in county Houses of Correction now had the same chance to prove themselves worthy of parole as enjoyed by many other county prisoners.
We understand that the 2010 reforms offered county drug offenders eligibility for parole, not a guarantee that parole would be granted. Yet we are not aware of any change in the overall county prison population – their offenses, sentences, or other characteristics – that would explain or justify the startling reduction in paroling rates for those men and women. Instead, it appears that the newly reconstituted Parole Board has chosen a policy that has substantially limited the scope of parole.
2011 legislation. This year we were again buoyed by the mandatory minimum reforms included in the Administration’s sentencing reform bill, H.40, including parole eligibility for nonviolent drug offenders in state prisons. We all know there is much work to be done to make parole eligibility for state drug offenders a reality. But we are extremely concerned that, even if you do succeed, those reforms may also become increasingly hollow victories, given the Parole Board’s current practices. Quite frankly, we hope and expect that the Administration is equally concerned. Massachusetts can no longer afford either the financial or human costs of lengthy prison sentences with little access to parole release for offenders who do not pose a threat to public safety.
Thank you for your attention. We look forward to continued cooperation with your Administration and the Legislature in our shared goal of fair, fiscally responsible drug sentencing reforms that promote public safety.
Sincerely,
Barbara J. Dougan, Massachusetts Project Director, Families Against Mandatory Minimums
Martin W. Healy, Chief Operating Officer and Chief Legal Counsel, Massachusetts Bar Association
Anthony J. Benedetti, Chief Counsel, Committee for Public Counsel Services
Ann K. Lambert, Legislative Counsel, American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts
Parole is a critical tool for prisoners’ successful return to the community, allowing them to make that transition with a re-entry plan and under the supervision of a parole officer. FAMM and its allies will continue our efforts to make state drug offenders serving mandatory minimums eligible for parole – and to ensure that parole reforms actually translate into real opportunities for those who have earned them.
Barb Dougan bdougan@famm.org www.famm.org
