Our criminal justice system failed Melissa Gosule, Woburn Police Officer John Maguire and, no doubt, scores of other victims of violent crimes because of a dysfunctional parole system in Massachusetts.
This week the Legislature passed a measure designed to prevent these tragedies in the future. But the proposed law is deeply flaw and will have the unintended consequence of allowing more dangerous criminals to walk the streets of our communities, unencumbered by any oversight, so that they can prey on more innocents.
The so-called “three-strikes” law will deny parole to any person convicted a third time for a variety of violent crimes. Clearly repeat offenders of violent crimes–rape, incest, aggravated assault, home invasion, among others–should be treated differently than first time offenders. I would fully support additional jail time for second and subsequent offenders. (For example, if you commit a second offense, the penalty would be twice as severe as a first time offender and the penalty would get progressively longer for subsequent offenses. Under this scenario, not only would they serve more time, they would also be on parole longer, so society monitors their behavior longer.)
Even with tougher jail time for repeat offenders, these dangerous criminals will be released from jail someday–whether they serve three years, ten years or twenty years. And when they get released from jail, society must be able to monitor these people very closely and have the power to throw them back in jail for even the slightest indiscretion (like drug use or hanging out with other convicted felons).
This is why we have parole, so that society can monitor the behavior of a felon after they are released from jail. That is why, for example, a ten year sentence really amounts to seven years of jail and three years of parole. Properly implemented, society “owns” a parolee for three years, putting strict conditions on a parolee’s life during these three years: requiring them to tell society where they live, requiring drug tests, allowing society to inspect where they live and preventing them from certain behaviors (like hanging out with other felons.) If they break these rules, they go back to jail. But as the Gosule and Maguire tragedies highlight, this was not happening and top to bottom reform of our parole system is needed.
But the solution to our parole problem–one that allowed violent criminals to easily seep underground, only to strike out at innocents again–is not to end parole for the most violent criminals, which this proposed law will do.
At best, this proposed law will delay the violent acts of third offenders by keeping them in jail a few years longer. At worse, it will send a legion of violent and harden criminals back into our communities, unfettered by any public safety oversight, to terrorize us.
If Governor Patrick signs this bill into law, it will only be a matter of time before the consequences will result in more senseless tragedies. When that happens, the legislative supporters of this bill and the legions of newspaper editorialist and pundits that advocated for it, will scream louder for “stronger” measures. I cringe to think of what “solutions” they will offer then.
Governor Patrick, for the safety of the public, veto this bill.
…and seems to contradict what I thought as well, is that these sentences are not LIFE without parole. I think if you ask most laypeople what they think of three strikes they will tell you that after the third violent crime the perp should NEVER be released.
…as in three serious felony convictions and you go to jail for life. It was never that, yet it has been billed as a “three strikes” bill…they just meant it to mean, “three strikes and you get no parole”, creating a situation that will mean, “three strikes, serve a full sentence and we’ll never now what you do next”.
The new law provides that the habitual offender shall be ineligible for “probation, parole, work release or furlough or any deduction from such person’s sentence for good conduct.”
I agree with pogo that this new law is very dumb in this aspect. Judges and prison officials need more discretion and not less. Parole and each of these provisions are useful law enforcement tools that ought to continue to be used at the discretion of law enforcement.
Fortunately, the new law is so loaded up with exceptions (related to the specific crimes that count and the 3 years served non-concurrently provisions) that it seems likely to apply to only a handful of offenders each year.
Shorter prison sentences that do not meet the 3 years in jail threshold maybe the norm, because judges are wise enough to know these folks need post prison supervision.
Will taxes be increased or will basic services like Medicaid and food stamps be cut? Show me a single rich person who is prepared to scream, “Please raise my taxes” before wasting my time with this garbage.
…but I’m somewhat confused.
Your post says that the new legislation will deny parole for 3rd strikers, meaning that they will be ineligible for early release and will therefore serve the entire balance of their sentence (taking into account good time credits, of course). Your critique appears to be that once the felon is released, we will have no way of monitoring their behavior.
However, parole does not last forever either. At some point, the parole period ends and the criminal is in the same unsupervised state that the 3rd strikers would be when they leave prison. So really, the only difference is that couple of years during which felons have been able to obtain early release, which now 3rd strikers would be exempted from.
If your concern is truly public safety, then I don’t understand why you see monitoring felons via a parole system is a safer option than keeping the felon IN CUSTODY. Want to know a way Officer Maguire could have remained alive? If his killer hadn’t been released!
I agree that the idea of letting dangerous and violent felons leave prison one day and be free to do as they please the next day is a disturbing one. But if faced with the choice between keeping them behind bars or releasing them under the supervision of a parole agent (who is no doubt overworked), I choose the former without hesitation.
For repeat violent offenders, we should have longer prison sentences and longer post-prison supervision. This law addresses the former and prohibits the latter. How is society “safer” when all we’re doing is delaying the release of a dangerous felon and when they are released, we have no control over their lives.
Officer Maguire’s killer was associating himself with other felons. If the parole system was working, he would have been sent back to prison for violating his parole.
Perhaps another solution is a real “truth in sentencing” law that does not confuse people. I think everyone agrees that anyone being released from jail (regardless of the length of the sentence) should have some kind of post release supervision. Today that means a 10 year sentence, for example, is 7 years of jail and 3 years of parole. This makes some people mad because the person did not do the full 10 years in jail. Maybe we should spell out at the time of sentencing that the convict serve 7 years in jail and 3 years of parole.
But this should not be an either or choice of serving more time behind bars and not having post-prison supervision. I have no problem adding more years to a repeat violent offender. But not at the expense of post-prison supervision. Eventually this criminals are released from jail and we need a effective parole system to monitor them. If not they will be a danger to society. As I mentioned above, if we hand an effective parole system, Office Maguire’s killer would have been back in prison for violating his parole.
Another disturbing aspect of the debate around the crime bill is the lack of discussion regarding the failure of the Parole system. Sure the Governor took actions to fix it, but the legislature should have rolled up it’s collective sleeves and worked to improve the system. Instead it took the easy, headline grabbing way out–no parole for you!
All this law will do is delay the release of violent criminals and thereby delay the repeat violent crimes they will commit. That is not a solution. That is a failure to govern.
This should NOT be an “either or” choice.
…is to see how they do out in the world. There are stiff penalties for violating parole and parolees are more closely watched than someone who has simply been released. There are also things that constitute parole violations, I think, that the rest of us who are not on parole are free to do. Keeping someone in custody does not give the state the chance to do this monitoring or the prisoner the chance to prove he can be trusted on the outside.
painted an “11” on the amp and claimed that makes the music louder. Thanks for pointing this out.