The Pendulum of Justice

April 5, 2010

A new approach to parole is making headway in the N.H. Legislature.

If Senate Bill 500 passes, nonviolent criminals would be released to community supervision after serving 120 percent of their minimum prison sentences. All prisoners would be paroled at least nine months before their maximum sentence expires. And parole violators would face 90 days back in jail in a special program designed to re-engage them in their parole plans.

Supporters say the shift in corrections could save the state money and help reduce recidivism at the same time. The Parole Board, however, fears for public safety if their authority is usurped.

Senate President Sylvia Larsen (D-Concord) sponsored the bill, along with eight other state senators and representatives from both parties. After passing the Senate last week, it received a public hearing in the House Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee April 1 and is expected to get a vote in the House sometime this month.

Justice Reinvestment Initiative

SB 500 was developed with help from the Council of State Governments’ Justice Center (www.justicereinvestment.org). The CSG is a nonpartisan forum for all three branches of state-level government, and the Justice Center is a data-driven research and policy development program.

What that means, in this case, is that the state of New Hampshire assembled a Justice Reinvestment Leadership Team, including Attorney General Michael Delaney, Chief Justice John Broderick Jr., corrections officials and lawmakers. They’ve spent eight months working with the Justice Center to figure out how the state’s corrections costs could be lowered while keeping the public safe.

According to the team, New Hampshire’s crime rate has stayed low, but the prison population has grown by 31 percent and the corrections budget has nearly doubled in the last 10 years.

They say this is mainly because inmates released on parole or probation cycle back into prison for failure to get treatment for substance abuse or mental illness. As many as 59 percent of parolees who return to prison have committed no new offenses, Larsen says. They go back to prison simply for parole violations.

That’s a good thing, according to John Eckert, executive assistant to the Parole Board, who’s recently spoken out against SB 500 on behalf of board. He disputes claims that parolees are re-incarcerated for minor violations like showing up late to a meeting, and says they’re returned to prison as a last resort.

“Consider this,” Eckert says. “Maybe by bringing people back before they commit new crimes, we prevent crimes from being committed.” After all, he says, a heroin addict who refuses treatment time and again will likely turn to crime to support his habit.

“The lack of community treatment options is reflected in our excessive recidivism rate,” says Larsen. By releasing inmates before their maximum term is served, the state can save money on incarceration and in turn “reinvest” that into community-based treatment programs. The hope is that more supports and supervision for the transition back into society will help make that transition more successful.

But it’s not just about hope, according to Michael Thompson, director of the Justice Center. He says they’ve already found ways for states—including Texas, Connecticut, Vermont and Rhode Island—to save money and make communities safer. The only other option is to build more prisons to accommodate the growing prison populations, Thompson says.

Minimum Sentencing

“Corrections has become an anchor dragging the entire state down,” says Rep. Daniel Eaton (D-Stoddard). He is a former police chief and gun seller who is now vice-chair of the House Finance Committee (Division II). “Modeling on this has worked in Texas,” a state that’s known for its hard line on criminal offenders, he points out. “If they’re letting these people out in Texas, what the hell are we keeping them for?”

A move toward mandatory minimum sentencing is one reason. It was a nationwide trend in the 1980s (think “three strikes” laws), and one that Eaton got behind.

“Thirty years ago, judges were letting people out so early it made a mockery of the system,” he says. The mandatory minimum sentencing laws were intended to tighten up accountability, according to Eaton, but ended up swinging to an unintended extreme. He sees SB 500 as a way to restore balance and finally achieve what he and other lawmakers tried to accomplish years ago.

Further Study of Parole Board

A separate bill to study the parole board is also in the pipeline. Sponsored by Rep. Laura Pantelakos (D-Portsmouth), House Bill 1167 would establish a committee to compare the functioning of New Hampshire’s parole boards to those in other states. It passed the House, and a public hearing in the Senate is not yet scheduled.

“I’m not happy with the way the parole board works,” says Pantelakos. She says the volunteer members do an “excellent” job, but she wants to compare New Hampshire’s parole structure to that of other states to see what improvements can be made.

As for the board’s resistance to SB 500, she thinks it’s “sour grapes” about losing their authority.

So does Eaton. “I give no credibility to anything that comes out of the parole board,” he says. He calls their record “abysmal” and conjectures that any resistance to SB 500 stems from an unwillingness to give up their power.

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Filed under: Justice, Uncategorized, parole, recidivism

Tags: 2010, corrections, Council of State Governments, Daniel Eaton, HB 1167, John Eckert, Justice Reinvestment Initiative, Laura Pantelakos, legislation, New Hampshire, NH, SB 500, state house