The Case For Parole
Posted on Sat Oct 01, 2005 at 12:53:37 PM EST
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by TChris
The conservative argument against parole -- that it somehow cheats the public by permitting offenders to escape the full weight of a sentence -- underappreciates the leveling force that a parole authority exerts against disparate sentences. Conservative politicians say they value uniformity in sentencing, but they prefer to limit sentencing discretion by narrowing the range of sentences that judges may impose or by requiring minimum sentences. That philosophy has prevailed in Congress and in most state legislatures for a quarter century, but it has ratcheted up the time that offenders serve while doing little to eliminate disparate sentencing.
The sentencing philosophy of conservative politicians holds that rehabilitation is inachievable, that good conduct in prison deserves no reward, and that punishment and public protection are the only legitimate goals of incarceration. That policy leads to draconian sentences and increasingly fills prisons with elderly, nonthreating individuals who will die behind bars.
As today's must read article demonstrates, the elimination of parole for life sentences -- the proliferation of "life means life" laws -- has turned prisons into nursing homes and elder care centers.
[D]riven by tougher laws and political pressure on governors and parole boards, thousands of lifers are going into prisons each year, and in many states only a few are ever coming out, even in cases where judges and prosecutors did not intend to put them away forever.
Indeed, in just the last 30 years, the United States has created something never before seen in its history and unheard of around the globe: a booming population of prisoners whose only way out of prison is likely to be inside a coffin.
As a punishment, life without parole is preferable to death, which ends the opportunity to correct an erroneous conviction. But life sentences have too frequently been imposed under "three (or two) strikes" laws for conduct that doesn't warrant a permanent loss of liberty.
Fewer than two-thirds of the 70,000 people sentenced to life from 1988 to 2001 are in for murder, the Times analysis found. Other lifers - more than 25,000 of them - were convicted of crimes like rape, kidnapping, armed robbery, assault, extortion, burglary and arson. People convicted of drug trafficking account for 16 percent of all lifers.
Parole boards can keep the dangerous and incorrigible imprisoned while permitting those who pose no social threat, and those who have been punished enough, from wasting prison resources. Parole boards serve as a post-sentencing corrective that is desperately missed in sentencing systems (like the federal system) that have abolished parole.
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