A Second Chance at Freedom

A Second Chance at Freedom Punitive sentencing in Washington State and lessons from a new era of rehabilitation and parole

Washington Community Action Network

January 2017

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Washington Community Action Network For more information, contact: Washington Community Action Network 1806 E Yesler Way Seattle, WA 98122 206-389-0050 washingtoncan.org facebook.com/washingtoncommunityactionnetwork twitter.com/washingtoncan This report was written by Margaret Diddams, Ph.D., with contributed content from Cassandra Butler, Ginny Parham, Kim Willcox, and Keshena Williams, and editing by Chris Genese.

Special thanks to community leaders directly impacted by mass incarceration who shared their stories, including: Jamar Glenn, Bridgit Hartman, Joy Nash, Willie Nobles, Keshena Williams, and Kimothy Wynn.

Washington CAN! is the largest grassroots organization in Washington State. With 44,000 members, we fight for health equity, economic justice, immigrant rights, and an end to mass incarceration. We organize and develop leadership of people of color and people in poverty, who drive campaigns to defend the well-being and selfdetermination of their communities.

Cover photo: Paul Nunn, with his sister, Leonita, and his mother, Bridgit Hartman. Leonita has developmental disabilities and was unable to visit her brother for the first 14 years of his sentence.

Bridgit recalls, “The first time Leonita went to visit Paul, they both lit up. She ran over to him, hugged him, they were both crying. That was a special moment as a mother.

For a few God-given hours, the family was back together again.�

Paul is still incarcerated, but he works as a peer mentor for people with special needs in Washington Corrections Center in Shelton, a passion he attributes to his love for his sister. He dreams of becoming a counselor for adults with special needs in his home town.

Without some form of parole, Paul will be 52 by the time he is released. Bridgit fears that she will not live to see her son as an adult in the free world.

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Table of Contents Section

Page number

Introduction

4

Evidence of rehabilitation among people serving long sentences

6

Policies responsible for the spike in long-term sentences in Washington

9

Thirty years of increasingly severe and disparate sentencing, with change on the horizon

12

The impact of long prison sentences on families and communities

16

The possibility of parole improves behavior in prison and reduces recidivism after release

18

A wave of change: New parole board policies in other states

21

The limits of existing mechanisms of early release in Washington

26

How legal scholars define a “meaningful opportunity for release�

28

Financial costs of long-term incarceration compared to a parole review board

33

Recommendations

35

References

36

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Introduction Punitive approaches to incarceration do not have a net positive impact on society. Crime rates in Washington have not changed since the 1980s, yet the state has spent more money confining people to prison, more families have suffered the emotional and economic consequences of a loved one’s incarceration, and low-income neighborhoods have become more deeply entrenched in poverty. Mass incarceration has not done much to improve public safety, but it has harmed the health and well-being of disadvantaged communities.

There is a growing body of research which supports the conclusion that most people who commit violent crimes are not inherently violent and are capable of change. A person’s social and economic environment tends to be better predictor of criminal behavior than their personality traits. In fact, people who commit violent crimes and people serving long sentences are statistically more likely than any other population to successfully reintegrate and avoid criminal activity after release.

Although most academic researchers, correctional agencies, and members of the public have come to accept the idea that rehabilitation is possible, it is still not the underlying philosophy behind most criminal justice policies in Washington.

In 1984, discretionary parole review for the possibility of early release was eliminated in Washington for all but a few categories of people.

This decision was motivated by the incorrect assumption that people who commit serious or violent offenses in Washington are incapable of change.

Thirty years later, harsh sentencing policies, including the elimination of parole, have created a crisis of over-incarceration. The rate of incarceration in Washington is up 250% from 1980. This impacts the health and well-being of the children, families and communities whose loved ones are confined to serve decades in prison.

There are many people in Washington state prisons who have gone years without infractions, cultivated vocational trades, continued education, developed positive relationships with their families, and prepared themselves for release. Yet, they have no real reason to believe they will be released early.

This report surveys research on recidivism and rehabilitation among people with serious offenses. It examines the crisis of over-incarceration in the state, policies in Washington that created punitive sentencing, and parole policy reforms sweeping the country. It considers the inadequacies of existing mechanisms for early release in Washington, considers what would be necessary to implement a fair review of people in prison, and concludes with an analysis of potential financial costs and savings.

As a growing proportion of the state’s population is locked behind bars, Washington would be wise to consider whether it is in society’s best interest to continue incarcerating people for years after they have demonstrated their rehabilitation.

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Kimothy Wynn doctors kept my mother on life support so I could say goodbye. She was in a coma when I arrived. I want to believe that she could hear me.

I am the oldest of my mother’s four children. I am needed for the support and well-being of my siblings, my fiancé, and her children. I try every day to forgive myself for putting my family through all this, for not being there to take care of them like I should. I can call to lift people’s spirits, but I can’t really help them more than that while I’m here.

Figure 1. Kimothy Wynn and his mother, Octavia. Kimothy’s mother visited her son just weeks before her death. The last time Kimothy was able to see her, he was handcuffed and escorted by DOC officers at her deathbed.

My mother just died of diabetes complications. I knew she had been fighting with the disease for a long time, but I kept hoping she could beat it. In this very hard time, I have never believed, wanted, or hoped for something as much as I do for parole, for a Community Review Board.

This movement for a Community Review Board was very important to my mother. She was involved up until her death. She spoke about bringing men of all colors back to their families. She’d say, we need these men back more than you could possibly understand. The last time she spoke was weeks before she died. She didn’t let on how sick she was, she just kept fighting for what she knew was right.

Talking with her on the phone was the brightest part of my day. I’d try to make her laugh all the time. She dealt with a lot of depression, seeing her sons in prison. Every month, she visited. After she was paralyzed in a car accident, my girlfriend would pick her up and bring her out to see me.

Last month, my counselor got a call from the hospital saying my mother wasn’t going to make it.

At first, the Superintendent refused to let me visit. I had to submit a petition and appeal for them to let me go. Ultimately, they allowed me choose to attend either her bedside or her funeral, but not both. The

It’s true that getting incarcerated as a kid saved my life, because at the time I was lost. It forever changed the man I used to be, for that I am grateful.

After nearly two decades, it is time to put this changed man out to work in society to help educate, to help anyone that I can, to help them understand what wrong choices can do.

Many of us men in here have gotten the chance to take classes that give us skills and knowledge to be a positive contribution to society, to our families, to help support our re-entry into the world. I know I would never have had the chance to do this living the life I was living before. I have so many certificates: my GED, anger stress management, cognitive behavior change, release readiness, environmental literacy curriculum, partners in parenting, and more. How much is enough to prove that I’m ready, that I’m committed to change?

I have a life waiting for me, and I am more confident than I have ever been that I can make a difference in my community with what I have learned. I want to be a role model, a mentor. I want to be the husband, father, uncle, brother, cousin, and friend that I know I can be outside of these walls.

My mother’s only dream was to see her sons come home before she died. She fought right up until the end, but she never got to hold her boy as an adult in the free world. I’m devastated. She was my best friend. More than anything else, I sit here feeling helpless, unable to comfort and support my family the way a man should. This is the time a family needs to sit together, cry together. My little brother is in Stafford Creek prison and I’m over here in Coyote Ridge, on the other side of the state. All I can do is send up prayers that he is alright.

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Evidence of rehabilitation among people serving long sentences Within the last ten years, there has been a major shift in thinking about the purpose of incarceration 1 and the potential for reintegration into society. A significant body of empirical research has found that correctional treatment programs, when welldesigned and implemented, result in far lower rates 2 of recidivism. Rehabilitative services, like mental health and psychiatric care, addiction treatment programs, educational opportunities, employment, and training increase positive social behaviors and reduce violence in prison and recidivism after 3 release.

Sociological evidence also demonstrated that psychological, social, and economic factors, like poverty, exposure to violence, and lack of educational opportunity, rather than individual disposition, are the most influential determinants of 4,5,6 crime.

Decades of discriminatory access to housing, 7 employment, and education, and contemporary business and government disinvestment from 8 neighborhoods of color, have created ongoing structural inequities. Economic necessity and the chronic stress of poverty often drive people to engage in illegal activities, like drugs, theft, or gang 9 participation. Over-policing and incarceration in these neighborhoods contribute to higher rates of poverty and stress, increasing the likelihood of criminal activity.

Given a different set of environmental conditions, most people who have committed crimes in the past can successfully work, parent, and participate in the community. People released from prison after long sentences often become mentors to at-risk youth, motivated by first-hand experience with the catastrophic consequences of gang involvement or other illegal activities. Many people still in prison serving long sentences also parent, raise children, develop careers, and contribute to the well-being of the community outside prison while incarcerated.

These observations are not limited to people who have committed nonviolent or low-level offenses.

Although popular belief in the 1980s held that violent or “dangerous” offenders were beyond relief, analysis of programs in prisons throughout the

country has found that high-risk offenders are, in fact, the most likely to make positive changes in their behavior and future outcomes in response to 10 rehabilitative programs. Even in the absence of adequate comprehensive health care, treatment, education, and training programs, people are still influenced by their individual motivation to change and people convicted of violent crimes and sentenced to long prison terms still show the lowest relative rates of reoffending.

Incarceration increases the propensity for criminal behavior during the first 2-3 years behind bars.

Many factors, like the trauma of arrest and conviction, increased access to drugs in prison, heightened exposure to violence, and reduced access to employment and housing, cause people 11 serving short sentences to reoffend. However, numerous studies show that recidivism rates steadily 12 decline after 3 years in prison. After 15 years, recidivism rates are at their lowest point, and additional years of incarceration show little impact on post-release behavior. A study by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation in 2013 found that 67% of people who served 3 years in prison had recidivated, compared to only 34% of 13 people who served 15 years.

Recidivism rates are lowest for:   

People who have spent 15 years or more in prison People in prison for violent crimes People late in age

The type of crime also influences rates of recidivism.

People who commit violent crimes are less likely to offend again, compared to people convicted of 14 property, drug, or common assault crimes.

Property crimes are more likely to be “crimes of skill”, compared to serious violent crimes, which are 15 more likely to be “crimes of passion”. Property and drug crimes tend to be associated with entrepreneurial strategies in the absence of other forms of economic opportunity, strategies that people may resume in the face of employment

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discrimination after release. Addiction also contributes to repeat drug charges when adequate drug treatment programs are not available.

By contrast, studies show that less than 1% of 16 people convicted of murder ever kill a second time.

For example, a random sample of 336 homicide offenders released from New Jersey prisons between 1990 and 2000 found that 10-27% committed a second felony offense, lower than recidivism rates for any other crime, and none killed 17 again.

Finally, people tend to age out of crime, regardless of the type of their crime or the length of their sentence. Age is the most significant predictor of 18 criminality. Nationwide, 35.5% of people released at age 21 recidivate, compared to only 9.5% of 19 people released after age 50.

The changes in criminal justice policy and practice between the 1970s and 1990s were motivated, in part, by the belief that rehabilitation was not possible. People who committed crime were seen as fundamentally unlawful, immoral, and unable to participate in society. These political and racialized views were legitimized by political scientists and criminologists who espoused the same rhetoric. For

example, sociologist Robert Martinson claimed “nothing works” to rehabilitate someone once they have committed a crime, and most infamously, political scientist James Wilson wrote, “Wicked people exist. Nothing avails except to set them apart 20 from innocent people.”

Recent evidence of rehabilitation has been part of a broader shift in public opinion away from “tough on crime” policies to policies that are “smart on crime”.

More nuanced and compassionate approaches to criminal justice are at least “back on the table”, as media and voters increasingly perceive reintegration as the goal of incarceration, rather than long-term 21 warehousing. Even survivors of violent crime tend to have a less retributive view of criminal justice than many people think: a national survey of 800 crime victims found that 61% of victims of violent crime support shorter sentences and more 22 investment in prevention and rehabilitation.

Most criminal justice policies in Washington are still based on the older model of “lock’em up, throw away the key”. Over time, this approach has sent more people to prison for longer periods of time, perpetuating disparities and the cruel and unusual punishment of a life behind bars.

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Willie Nobles create the TEACH program, Taking Education and Creating History. We coordinate with Seattle Community College so that inmates get college credits for the classes we lead. It is slow going, but I am almost done with my AA degree, and now I teach other inmates college-level math and history.

I also organize as a leader with the Black Prisoners’ Caucus. We invite youth up to the prison to talk about issues they are facing, and we organize legislative summits for legislators and community members to discuss policy proposals.

Figure 2. The family of Willie Nobles, from left to right: Kim, Willie’s wife; Isaiah, Willie’s son; Ginny, Willie’s mother; and Nathan, Willie’s younger brother. Their shirts read: “Not just a prisoner, he is also my husband”; “Not just a prisoner, he is also my son”; “Not just a prisoner, he is also my brother”. Ginny is on the phone with Willie, the only way she is able to include her son in regular family activities.

I was a rebellious teenager. Growing up in a neighborhood where so many kids were involved in gangs, it was easy for me to take that path, too. One day, several members of the gang shot at rival gang kids, and one person died. I deeply regret the loss of life that day, and the pain I must have caused to their family. I wish I could reach out to them to express how much my heart hurts for them, how sorry I am. Nothing turns back the hands of time.

At 18, I was sentenced to 96 years in prison. This is madness. How do you give a kid 96 years in prison?

Two years into my sentence, I was tested to my core when my daughter was murdered. She was only three years old. It eats me up inside to think my daughter might still be alive if I had been there to protect her.

At first, I was hard-headed and caught up in the gang mentality, getting into fights, racking up infractions.

Eventually, something clicked. I got tired of seeing people hurting each other, tired of the chaos of the gang life. I grew up.

I started going to school. I got my GED, but I wanted to keep advancing. Others in Clallam Bay prison felt that way, too, but there is no state funding for higher education. Where there is no path, you must create a path. We organized and fundraised to

We are now working on a new re-entry program. We want to make sure people getting out can access support, like food stamps and housing. Unless things change, I will never be re-entering society, so these programs are not for me. But I do this because I don’t want anyone who has a chance at freedom to come back.

I have incredible family support. My mother has visited and written letters, kept money on my books, and come up for trailer visits without fail for 20 years. Living on disability income, she barely makes ends meet at it is, but she finds a way. We both know she is not going to survive through my whole sentence, so she is training my little brother to take her place.

I also recently got married to the love of my life. We have a strong partnership. We go grocery shopping together over the phone to make healthy choices for the family. We make parenting decisions and decide on birthday presents for the kids as a team. We try to make our relationship as normal as possible, even though there is nothing normal about trying to raise a family over the phone.

If I had been sentenced just four months earlier, I could be home by now, released through juvenile parole. But because I was 18 years and 4 months old, I am stuck here for the rest of my life. It is wrong what this has done to my mother, my wife, and my kids. It is a loss for the youth I could be teaching out there, the work I could be doing to give back to the community. We need solutions to mass incarceration. We need a way for people who can prove their commitment to change to come home.

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Policies responsible for the spike in long-term sentences in Washington The growth in the number of people in prison and the length of sentences in Washington over the past thirty years mirrored trends in the rest of the country. These changes were driven by the “tough on crime” political sentiment favoring retributive 23 justice, punishment, and deterrence. One aspect of the punitive response to crime was a growing call for “truth in sentencing”, a set of policies designed to ensure that people serve the entire sentence 24 assigned by the judge, or at least “a long time”.

Until the 1980s, most states had indeterminate sentencing structures that allowed judges, parole boards, or correctional officers to exercise discretion about an individual’s release. Thereafter, states began to implement determinant sentencing structures which mandated sentence lengths, placed restrictions on judicial and administrative discretion, 25 and eliminated or curtailed access to parole. In 1980, state parole boards throughout the country had the power to authorize early release for almost all people in state prisons. By 2006, less than one in four prisoners in the country could petition a parole 26 board for release.

The Sentencing Reform Act of 1981 in Washington eliminated parole for all but a few categories of people. It was intended to reduce crime by detaining irredeemable people and achieve more uniform sentences.

The bill did not achieve its objectives.

Since 1984, crime rates have not changed and there are still profound racial disparities in sentencing.

Before 1984, Washington had a parole board called the Indeterminate Sentencing Review Board (ISRB) which made decisions about individuals’ release. The parole board heard petitions from prisoners after 20 years, or with good behavior, 13 years and 4 months’ time served to evaluate if they were ready to be released. This model was intended to protect public safety, by detaining people who still posed a risk to

society, and promote rehabilitation, by incentivizing people to work towards healthy and productive 27 reintegration into society.

In the late 1970s, the feasibility of rehabilitation and the success of rehabilitative models of incarceration 28 were called into question. People also expressed concerns about the inconsistencies in sentencing, including racial disparities, produced by the indeterminate sentencing structure. As a result, the legislature passed the Sentencing Reform Act (SRA) of 1981, implemented in 1984. It abolished parole and create a determinate sentencing grid in its place.

The SRA explicitly rejected the state’s previous commitment to rehabilitation and instead implemented “just deserts”, the principle that people receive fixed sentences proportionate to the severity of their crime. A sentencing grid mandates the length and conditions of incarceration within a fixed range, narrowly circumscribing judicial discretion. Individual life circumstances prior to the crime and behavior while incarcerated have little to no impact on the length of the sentence. The term of incarceration is fixed, with the exception of certain sentences allowing for “good time”, a one-third 29 reduction for good behavior. The sentencing grid was designed to increase punishment for violent crimes and increase opportunities for alternatives to confinement for nonviolent crimes.

This policy was a major catalyst behind the increasing length of sentences in Washington. Longterm and life sentences that would have been reviewed by the parole board after 20 years or 13 30 years and 4 months were extended by decades.

Policymakers had hoped that the SRA’s mandatory grid would achieve uniformity in sentencing, but it 31 failed on this mark. The policy incorrectly assumes that defendants of color and defendants in poverty have the same set of circumstances as other defendants.

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For example, the Sentencing Reform Act resulted in longer sentences and higher rates of incarceration for violent crimes, up from 49% in 1983 to 69% in 1991. This disproportionately impacted people of color who, because of structural inequities that create more violent conditions in communities of color and discriminatory prosecution, are more likely 32 to be charged with certain violent crimes. The sentencing grid also bases sentence lengths on a combination of the current criminal charge and the defendant’s criminal history. People of color and people in poverty are more likely to have past criminal charges because of factors like inequitable access to resources in marginalized neighborhoods and past exposure to racial and class bias in the 33 criminal justice system.

Inconsistencies in sentencing can also be seen in comparisons between counties. For example, King County has a consistently lower average sentence length for “most serious offenders” than Pierce County (see Figure 3). A variety of factors contribute to this difference, including attitudes about punishment among judges and prosecutors in each county and a greater proportion of low-income people and people of color in Pierce County, demographics that tend to be more heavily policed.

Figure 3. The average length of sentences for “most serious offenders”, as defined by the Sentencing Guidelines Commission, convicted by courts in King County and Pierce County.34 Between 1999 and 2015, with the exception of two outlying years, sentences are consistently longer on average in Pierce County than in King County.35

Although the SRA was the most radical change to sentencing in Washington in the past forty years, it was followed by other “tough on crime” policies, like mandatory minimum sentencing, weapons enhancements, and three strikes, that have contributed to increasingly severe sentencing in the state.

One in three people in Washington state prisons would be eligible for parole today if it had not been abolished in 1981.

Most notably, the Persistent Offender Accountability Act (POAA) of 1993 mandated a sentence of life without the possibility of parole for people convicted 36 of a third “more serious offense”. Washington was the first state in the country to introduce a ‘three strikes’ law and the state’s policy remains one of the harshest nationwide. Ten years after the POAA passed, the population of people serving life without 37 parole sentences more than doubled.

Two years later, the Hard Time for Armed Crime Act (HTACA) added mandatory sentence enhancements for any case in which the defendant or accomplice 38 was holding a gun. In 1994, the maximum enhancement was two years per gun charge; in 2016, it is now five years for first-time offenders and 10 years for people who have had weapons 39 enhancements before. Enhancements are added to each charge and served consecutively.

The policy has perverse consequences. Defendants are often given exceptionally long sentences relative to their charge because of added weapons enhancements, even when the weapon had little to 40 do with the actual crime. More than 60% of people with sentences longer than 39 years, or de facto life sentences, have weapons enhancements, and 20% of people serving de facto life sentences would not be serving life if not for these enhancements, that is, if not for the mere presence of a gun during the 36 commission of the crime.

These and other sentencing reforms since 1984 have created a growing population of people in prison serving exceptionally long sentences, without the dignity of any possibility of re-entering society. In 2015, 6,164 people in Washington were serving 42 sentences longer than 15 years. One in three people in Washington state prisons would be eligible for parole today if it had not been abolished.

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Keshena Williams I’m not the only one who has been incarcerated in my family. In fact, of all the people incarcerated in our family, I’m the only one who is living free again.

When I was 14 years old, my mother’s husband was put away for decades. My youngest son’s father is in prison and my husband is in prison.

Seeing so many family members in prison impacted my oldest son. He acted out a lot of his anger and resentment. Unfortunately, he was just transferred from jail to the prison in Shelton to serve out two years. I tell him he needs to take responsibility for the actions that put him there.

Figure 4. Keshena Williams in a Purdy visiting room with her son, Vinny. While in prison, Keshena was only able to see her son a few times a year. Although Keshena is now out and doing well, four other people in her family are still in prison, including her husband who has 20 years to go.

My criminal lifestyle was solely chasing money. I wasn’t doing it the right way, but I thought it was what I needed to do to provide for my kids.

Eventually, I was caught.

In prison, my oldest son came to visit me through a boy scouts program. One time, he said, “Mom, if you ever come back here, I’m never coming to visit you.”

That lit a fire in me when I was released. I knew how my absence was hurting him. I decided that I would not let this happen again, no matter what obstacles I faced.

Life was rough for the first two years. I was at rock bottom. I had no home, no clothes, no money, I had to start over from scratch. My first real job in my life was with Virgin Airlines. I worked from 3:30 am until 2:00 pm five days a week. After work, I picked up my kids from school and took care of them the rest of the evening. Little by little, things started getting easier. I worked my way up, from $10 an hour to $22 an hour. We were able to move into our own place, and now have a fairly stable life.

It is devastating to see mass incarceration tear up my family. Prison is intergenerational. Kids suffer when parents are incarcerated, especially for long periods of time. If you grow up with it in your family, it’s so easy to walk that path yourself.

My husband, Chris, is still facing another twenty years. We dream about a time when we can do the simple things, like walking down the street holding hands or taking the kids to the movies. Every weekend, I drive out to see him, and he talks with my kids regularly on the phone, but it’s not enough.

Together, Chris and I established a nonprofit, All About You Teen Center in Tacoma, for children whose parents are in prison. Our governing board includes both formerly incarcerated people and people currently in prison who participate over the phone. I believe that if I had a space as a kid like what we are trying to create, a safe space to talk about how it feels to lose a parent to prison, I may not have gone to prison myself.

I think a lot about all the women I left behind in Purdy. While I have been re-building my life out here since 2007, they are still separated from their families, unable to experience freedom. There are so many women who are just as capable and mature as I am, but have decades to go. We are not the monsters the courts make us out to be. Most of us are just women trying to do our best for our families.

We deserve second chances.

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Thirty years of increasingly severe and disparate sentencing, with change on the horizon The exponential growth in the prison population cannot be explained by a rise in crime: crime rates in Washington have changed little over the last thirty 43 years. These changes are strictly political, the result of policing, conviction, and sentencing policies and practices that increasingly emphasize incarceration as the state’s dominant response to crime.

Since the prison boom has not reduced crime, mass incarceration in Washington has had a net negative impact on society. The state is spending more money and causing harm to more families separated by incarceration, without any benefits for public safety.

The “tough on crime” policies of the 1980s dramatically changed the nature of incarceration in Washington. Between 1980 and 2014, the rate of incarceration in the state increased more than 250% (see Figure 5). Since 1990, four new state prisons 44 were constructed, and only one old prison closed.

Figure 5. The number of people in prison in Washington with a sentence of more than 1 year per 100,000 Washington residents.45 The rate of incarceration has climbed exponentially since 1983.

Over the last thirty years, more people in criminal proceedings in Washington are charged with 46 felonies. Sentences have become increasingly 47 harsh, especially for violent crimes. There are more people sentenced to prison terms exceeding 20 years and more people with sentences of life without parole.

The state’s prison population has also been getting older. The average age in Washington prisons in 2016 was 38.6 years old, up from 34.9 for men and 48 34.4 for women in 2000. This is particularly staggering in light of the rates at which arrests for violent crimes peak: at age 19 for murder and 18 49 for rape. Many people in state facilities, arrested in their teens or 20s, are now living in state prisons through late adulthood. Three percent of the population, or 519 people in prison, are senior citizens, over age 65.

The rise in long-term sentencing in Washington has not impacted people of all races equally. The magnitude of racial disparity increases with the 50 severity of the sentence imposed. For example, African Americans make up 4% of the general population in Washington State, 15% of people convicted of felony charges, and 28% of people 51 serving life without the possibility of parole. Since long-term sentences showed a larger proportionate increase in length over the past thirty years 52 compared to short-term sentences, people of color have been hardest hit by the changes in sentencing.

The state’s particularly and increasingly draconian approach to violence also has implications for racial disproportionality. Structural inequities in communities of color, like inadequate access to employment, housing, healthcare, and education, as well as higher rates of policing and incarceration, 53 drive higher rates of violence. In Washington in 2015, African Americans and Latinos were more likely than other racial groups to be convicted of murder, Asian and Pacific Islanders more likely to be convicted of manslaughter, and Caucasians more likely to be convicted of sex, drug, and property crimes (see Figure 6).

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Figure 6. Distribution of convictions by race. The graphs above represent the proportion of people in each racial group confined to state prison in Washington in 2015 for the indicated crime.54

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These racial disparities in conviction rates by type of crime are significant because sentences in Washington are, on average, two to seven times longer for murder and manslaughter than for sex, property, and drug crimes (Figure 7). In other words, the crimes for which people of color are more often convicted are the same crimes that receive the longest sentences and have seen the largest spikes in sentencing lengths.

There is change on the horizon. The trend toward inequitable and increasingly harsh sentencing over the last thirty years has slowed. Sentences are still exceptionally long compared to average lengths in the 1980s and there are still many legal mechanisms in place to incapacitate people without the possibility of early release. Nonetheless, recent policies and judicial practices have caused a plateau and gradual decline in sentence lengths, reflecting an era of reform (Figure 8).

Therefore, policies that increase the length of sentences or eliminate opportunities for early release for people convicted of violent crimes have a disproportionate impact on people of color, even when they are facially race-neutral.

Figure 8. The length of felony sentences with a determinate release date in Washington increased exponentially between 2005 and 2011.56 In 2012, the average length of sentences began to decline, reflecting of an era of reform.57

Figure 7. The average length of sentences in Washington in 2015 by type of criminal charge. Murder in the first and second degree carry the longest sentences.55

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Joy Nash, mother of James Rollins our family in. I think James and I went through that same process.

At first, James was acting out. I told him he had to change his gang mentality. It took him a while to figure that one out. He finally started to accept his circumstances. One day he said, “Mom, I’ll always carry that stigma, but I don’t practice gang life anymore, I left that life behind.”

Figure 9. James Rollins with his family: Precious, his cousin; Willie Charles, his dad; Kimberly, his wife; and Joy, his mother. Since James has been in prison most of his adult life, he only appears in family pictures taken in DOC visiting rooms.

Whe n I was young, I was struggling with drug addiction and abuse. I was living with a man who raped my daughter and assaulted my son. After I left the relationship, my kids and I were couch surfing. I was depressed and tried to commit suicide twice, then started using crack. That has to be one of the most horrific decisions I’ve ever made.

I couldn’t raise my boys the way they needed. As a family, we struggled to keep up with basics and my kids took on a lot more financial responsibility than they should have had to bear. James got involved in gangs, trying to make money to pay for food and acting out the anger he felt towards me. That landed him in juvenile correctional facilities throughout his young adult life.

The day he was arrested for the last time, I was at work. James was standing on the street corner with other boys, selling drugs. The drug deal went bad, and they shot at a car. The feds found him at a friend’s apartment a few days later.

When the judge announced the amount of time, I was in total shock. With added gun enhancements, James was looking at 42 years. It took me a long time to overcome my anger at him and at myself, for the loss of the woman’s life and for the position we put

Over the last few years, I’ve seen a maturity begin to emerge. He’s calmer now, he’d rather talk about things. He’s not that violent, raging kid he used to be. He’s a good man, intelligent, thoughtful, and giving. He started reading, going to the law library, talking to the older, more mature men in prison who have given him some great insight and advice. He got his GED and he works in the kitchen. Now that he’s been there for more than 24 years, he mentors the young men who are just arriving.

James has a beautiful daughter. Her mom and I took her to visit when she was an infant, but now she struggles with the idea that her dad is in prison. She won’t visit or accept phone calls from her dad because she is angry about his absence. I see the hurt in James’s face when he talks about her, I know he feels sad that he can’t be the dad he wants to be.

It’s been more than two decades since I started going to visit my son in prison. I’m on Social Security income, so it wipes me out financially to support him. We have applied for appeal numerous times, but he is always denied. Everyone he knows who applied for clemency has been denied. What hope do we have?

We just have to keep going. He’s always thinking about how to prepare himself, just in case. I try to get him to keep up that hope, even when it’s a sliver of a chance. He found three business owners in Tacoma who have promised him a job. A lot of good people out here are ready to support him.

My soul hurts, I want my son home. I remember the first time I left him after a visit. The reality doesn’t set in until you hear the clanking of the doors. I had nightmares about it. I kept thinking, someone’s going to kill my son. That’s my baby boy. It becomes normal, but it doesn’t get any easier.

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The impact of long prison sentences on families and communities Long-term sentences contribute to intergenerational poverty, trauma, stress, and health disparities. Mass incarceration is a public health crisis for children, families, and neighborhoods.

Of the 18,991 people in Washington state prisons, approximately 15,000 are parents and they 58 collectively have 29,000 children. Most prisons in the state are far from urban areas, so visitation is difficult and expensive. Fewer than half of children with parents in prison are able to visit with their parents, and contact between the child and the 59 parent decreases the longer the parent’s sentence.

A parent’s incarceration is traumatic and stigmatizing, which impacts children’s mental health.

As a result, children of incarcerated parents are more likely to face difficulties in school, have low 60 self-esteem, and act aggressively.

Incarceration decreases the economic resources of a household. The absence of an adult in their prime leaves many families dependent on a single income.

In addition, studies estimate that family members spend at least 15% of their income on the costs of 61 communicating with their family member in prison.

Families with a loved one in prison are more likely to fall below the poverty line, which increases the chances that youth in the family will engage in 62 violent crime.

Children with parents in prison are less likely to graduate from high school, are more likely to live in poverty as adults, are 6 times as likely as their peers to end up in prison, and have shortened life 63 expectancies compared to other children.

High rate s of

arrest and long-term confinement of people from a given neighborhood have cumulative impacts on residents. Neighborhoods in Washington remain 64 highly segregated. Majority minority and lowincome neighborhoods tend to see higher levels of incarceration, with up to 20% of the adult male 65,66 population behind bars.

Incarceration removes from the neighborhood a large number of men who had otherwise provided support to their partners, children, and broader 67 networks. When many men of color are taken from a neighborhood, there are fewer mentorship opportunities for boys of color, which affects their educational attainment, employment, and gang participation. Institutions like schools, businesses, and police in these neighborhoods also focus more punitive attention on poor, minority, immigrant, and LGBTQ youth, especially African American boys, increasing disproportionate discipline and arrest, youth sense of alienation, and their likelihood of 68 involvement in crime.

Long sentences permanently disrupt social networks and the support they provide for navigating problems of life, which is particularly upsetting for people in poverty who depend on family and friends in the absence of opportunity and 69 resources. The stress of neighborhood-level incarceration affects the mental health of residents, whether they have a family member in prison or 70 not. Behaviors associated with depression and anxiety contribute to higher levels of crime and violence, perpetuating the cycle.

In some neighborhoods, as many as 20% of the adult men are behind bars. This disrupts social networks and increases surveillance and punishment by schools, businesses, and police.

Residents from these neighborhoods, even people who have no relations in prison, experience higher levels of stress, depression, and anxiety, and, as a result, are more likely to commit crime.

Mass incarceration is a vicious, self-perpetuating cycle.

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Cassandra Butler, sister of Thomas Butler

Figure 10. Thomas Butler and his family. Tommy was given six concurrent life sentences. Tommy’s sister, Cassandra (far right), brings Tommy’s son, Braden, to visit every month. Even now that he is seven, Braden has trouble making the distinction between a fun weekend with his daddy and a good weekend in a bad place.

Cassandra fears that with prison such a normal part of his life, Braden may follow in his father’s footsteps.

The story of my brother, Tommy, is tough to tell but important so that people are aware of just how mass incarceration affects families. He is in prison under Washington’s harsh three strikes law. The judge assigned him six life sentences for an incident in which he was the only person shot.

As an adolescent, Tommy was caught up in gang life.

At 17, he was charged with robbery. The prosecutor offered him a plea deal, a strike in place of a longer prison sentence. Too young to realize that this decision would later cost him his life in the free world, Tommy accepted the deal.

At 18, Tommy committed armed robbery and was sentenced to more than 8 years in prison, his second strike. During that time, my family and I supported my brother through his sentence the best way we knew how, but he still struggled trying to make his way into adulthood.

When Tommy was released in 2008, he moved in with my parents, found a job, and began to work towards a better future. Unfortunately, he did not have the tools necessary to restart a stable life outside of prison and the pull of the streets was too strong. He lost his job shortly after he started and

was unable to find new work or housing. We didn’t know how to help him. Desperate to find some kind of financial stability, Tommy turned to people he thought had his back, his street family.

At 25, Tommy robbed a house where he thought he could get drugs. As Tommy was fleeing, he was shot in the back three times. The doctors told us they didn’t think he would make it. We sat with him, terrified that he was dying. Officials came into the hospital room, and woke him from his medicallyinduced coma to interrogate him about taking a plea deal. They were more concerned about incarcerating my brother than making sure he lived.

Ultimately, it was not the bullets but Washington’s harsh criminal justice policies that took him away from us. The judge gave him a life sentence for each charge, ensuring that if he ever successfully appealed one charge, he would have five life sentences waiting behind him.

Tommy is the father of two beautiful children, Jayla and Braden. They are the light of his life. Since my brother is incarcerated, I have been the one to handle many things that a father should be doing.

Braden lives in a very volatile situation with his mother, so I have spent the last seven years making sure he and his siblings at least have food and shelter.

I do everything I can to support Braden and Jayla maintaining a bond with their father, even though prison makes that very hard to do. I ensure that Braden and Jayla always have birthday and Christmas presents from their father. I keep money on Tommy’s phone account so he can talk with his kids. I take Braden to visit my brother every other month, even though it is a 8 hour trip each way from Spokane to Clallam Bay. Jayla lives in Texas and was only able to meet her dad for the first time this December. It was an incredible moment, but she cried endlessly when she realized he couldn’t go home with her.

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It is absurd to tell a man in his teens or twenties that the mistakes of his youth mean he will be condemned to a life in prison, that he will never change and is not even deserving of review. It is

unfair to take a father away from his two children for their entire lives without so much as a second thought to the impact that might have on the children.

The possibility of parole improves behavior in prison and reduces recidivism after release Improved behavior in prison Access to parole is an important incentive structure, proven to reduce violence in prison. Even in the absence of adequate rehabilitation and reentry programs, the possibility of early release through parole gives people hope and reason to invest in 71 their own growth.

A study in Georgia examined changes in inmate behavior before and after the state denied parole to people sentenced under the state’s version of “three 72 strikes”. Without hope of parole, people had less incentive to stay out of trouble, work hard, and maintain commitment to their goals.

Researchers assessed behavior of the people denied access to parole before and after the policy change.

When people were eligible for parole, they received fewer infractions, engaged in less violence, and participated more often in rehabilitative programs than when they had no hope of release.

Reduced recidivism after release Parole boards consider petitioners’ remorse, commitment to positive social behavior, work ethic, and plan for housing and employment. When a person has put in effort for years to demonstrate these traits and achievements, they are far less likely to turn to previous criminal behavior once they return home. They are likely to have gained education, skills, and social support that they would not otherwise have had. They also know the struggle required to achieve parole, can feel a sense of accomplishment, and have reason to avoid anything that would jeopardize their hard-won freedom.

There are numerous studies that support the assertion that people released on parole are less likely to offend again.

A 2011 study in California monitored the postrelease outcomes of 860 people convicted of homicide and sentenced to life, paroled in 1995.

After the six years, only five individuals (less than 1%) had returned to prison or jail for new felonies of 73 any kind.

Another California study in 2013 evaluated the longitudinal outcomes of 112,887 people released from state prisons in 2008. People who served a determinate sentence were more than five times as likely to reoffend after three years than people 74 released through parole (61% vs. 11.5%). This is also true when considering people paroled after they were sentenced to life. A longitudinal study of people released in 2007 in California found that the reconviction rate of paroled lifers was approximately one-tenth the rate of people who served 75 determinate sentences.

Although the statistics out of California are exceptional, and perhaps speak to the effectiveness of the state’s parole board, other states have similarly observed lower recidivism rates among parolees than others in their cohort. An influential study in New Jersey has sparked heated public dialogue about parole in the last two years.

Researchers found that 38% of people released on parole convicted a new crime after 3 years, compared to 55% of people who simply completed 76 their original sentence.

Every year, Louisiana tracks the rate of recidivism for all people released from the Department of Corrections, compared to the subset of people 77 released through parole. Figure 10 and 11 show that the rate of recidivism for paroled ex-offenders is consistently lower than the state’s overall recidivism rates, both one and three years after release.

Long-term and life sentences are, in part, premised on the assumption that prolonged incarceration for people who committed serious offenses is necessary

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to protect public safety. The low rates of recidivism among paroled prisoners, two to ten times lower than the rest of the prison population, calls into

question the public safety rationale for long sentences without the possibility of parole.

Figure 11. Rates of recidivism in Louisiana one year after release from prison. Between 2004 and 2012, the number of people who recidivate and return to prison after one year is consistently lower for people released by a parole board than the total Department of Corrections population.78

Figure 12. Rates of recidivism in Louisiana three years after release from prison.

Between 2004 and 2012, the number of people who recidivate and return to prison after three years is consistently lower for people released by a parole board than the total Department of Corrections population.79

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Jamar Glenn As my release date got closer, I started working on myself, calming my temper, resisting the urge to lash out at people, cultivating love and positivity in my heart. I knew I wanted to make it home to celebrate Thanksgiving with my family. I didn’t want to be so lonely anymore.

It wasn’t easy when I was released, but I told myself I would make it no matter what. I woke up at 6:00 am every morning, applying to jobs. I finally landed a great job with a construction union, making $24 an hour. Now I have a career to look forward to.

Figure 13. After 18 years of incarceration, Jamar is now a community leader in the city where he was raised. In the picture, Jamar is emceeing a public event on mass incarceration.

I was raised in the church. As a kid, I played the drums and served as a junior deacon. My mother was the first lady. She tried to show me how to be an honorable man. I feel like I let her down.

Growing up, my family really struggled to keep up with rent. To help my mother, I took whatever money came into the house, then bought and resold drugs so that we had enough money to pay bills.

Unfortunately, the streets took ahold of my life. I ended up killing someone. It was a horrible mistake that caused a lot of pain to many people.

On the side, I work at a barber shop. This is my art and passion. I like to make people feel good about themselves. I started this passion in prison. People would line up before visits to have their hair trimmed. I wasn’t thinking seriously about it at first, but a friend encouraged me to get my license. Taking classes and developing my skill helped me to imagine my future outside of prison.

Everything I’m doing now, I thought into existence.

Good friends in prison taught me to take advantage of every opportunity I have and focus on how I can set myself up for success. I like to lead by example. I show my younger cousins that they don’t have to be involved in gangs and drugs.

It’s a blessing that I can support my family now.

When my mother calls to ask me to watch my nieces and nephews, or help her out with some bills, I can do that. That feels really good.

At 16, I was sentenced to more than 18 years in prison. At first, I didn’t think about anything positive.

Eighteen years felt like a lifetime, and in some ways it was. I missed the prime of my life, the time that most people finish high school, have their first job, their first relationship and kid.

I did a lot of damage when I was younger. I want to help fix what I broke. I am involved in organizing now so I can give back to the city where I grew up. I hope we can support the families and the people in prison who feel like no one cares about them, and the youth who are on the edge of going to prison themselves.

When you have a long sentence, it feels like there is nothing but loneliness staring you down. It’s easy to act foolishly when no one expects any better of you.

But if you have hope, you can work on changing your heart and your way of thinking. It becomes easier to commit to change because there’s a chance you will have a future to live for.

Washington is locking so many people up, and a lot of them just need support to get out of poverty, or someone willing to listen to their struggles.

Incarceration is a band-aid for the deeper problems going on in our communities. It helps no one to keep mature and positive people locked up long beyond the time they are ready to come.

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A wave of change: New parole board policies in other states Since 2012, the total number of people in state prisons has been dropping. This turning tide is the result of numerous state policies that have reduced the number of people in prison and the length of sentences, and eliminated barriers to people with felony records, thereby reducing recidivism. In 2013 alone, 31 states collectively adopted 47 policies to 80 reform the criminal justice system. While there have been many changes in the sentencing and incarceration of people with serious offenses, parole boards have been one of the most common sites of reform.

In the 1980s and 90s, voters tended to favor the 81 abolition of parole. By 1999, sixteen states had eliminated their parole boards: Arizona, California, Delaware, Illinois, Kansas, Maine, Minnesota, Mississippi, New York, Ohio, Oregon, New Mexico, 82 North Carolina, Virginia, and Washington. Around 2000, states began to reconsider the importance of individual and administrative discretion when detaining people beyond 15-20 years. Between 2010 and 2015, at least 16 states passed legislation reinstating or transforming the structure, function, 83 and authority of their parole board.

States across the country are reconsidering parole. Between 2010 and 2015, at least 16 states passed legislation reinstating or transforming their parole boards.

By 2015, 26 states had granted parole boards the authority to determine the appropriate release date for almost 100% of the inmates in state prison 84 (see Figure 13). Another 9 states allow a significant but limited proportion of the prison population to petition for parole. Only 14 states in the nation have still failed to reinstate parole, or limit access to a very small number of people.

Figure 14. As of 2015, there were 26 states where parole boards have been granted the authority to determine the release of almost all inmates. There are only 14 states, including Washington, where few to no people in prison have access to parole.85

Four case studies below examine examples of the pattern that has characterized parole reform throughout most of the country: a board was created, then abolished or severely curtailed, and more recently, reinstated or improved. Recent reforms include:  More transparency and equitable standards of parole review in Alabama;  Parole reinstated for a greater proportion of the population in Georgia;  Parole review reintroduced parole for all nonviolent offenders with more evidencebased assessment in Mississippi;  Expanded access to parole for high-level offenders in New Jersey, along with a streamlined process allowing more people to be reviewed.

Each state showed measurable improvements in the total prison population, the cost of corrections, and rates of recidivism.

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Alabama

1939: Parole board created.

Alabama created a three-member State Board of Prisons and Pardons that had “complete and final authority� in all matters pertaining to parole and 86 pardons. The Board had decision-making authority independent of the Department of Corrections, the governor, or the courts.

People could petition for parole after completing a term in correspondence with guidelines set in their original sentence, usually one-third of the sentence 87 or ten years. A parole investigation was initiated after a person completed a minimum sentence with good behavior. Written notice of the parole hearing was sent to the victim, the attorney general, the chief of police and sheriff in the city where the crime occurred, the district attorney who prosecuted the case, and the judge who tried the case. The petitioner had the right to present his or her case to the Parole Board in person.

The Board members were nominated by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, the Presiding Judge of the Court of Criminal Appeals, and the Lieutenant Governor, and appointed by the Governor. Each member served staggered terms of two, four, and six years. Members of the Board were required to devote their time in full to the Board and hold no other office. Quorum for most cases was two years, but all three were required to be present for decisions about people who had completed less than ten years or less than one-third of their sentence.

2003: Number of people able to access parole reduced.

Alabama created a structured sentencing structure 88 for non-capital felony offenses. Forty-five specific offenses are dictated under this sentencing structure, including the threatened use of a deadly weapon, sex offenses, and conspiracies. This truthin-sentencing policy eliminated parole as an option for people convicted of any of forty-five crimes.

2015: Increased transparency and equity in parole decision-making.

Senate Bill 67 requires the parole board to create structure guidelines about the time of release, based on research and best practices. The parole board is also required to record their reason for denial and share these reasons with the petitioner, the victim, 89 and the Department of Corrections.

These changes were designed to address the low proportion of released parolees out of the total 90 petitioners heard before the Board. Standardizing the guidelines under which petitioners are evaluated and requiring the Board to disseminate their rationale for denial lowers the frequency of arbitrary and politically motivated denial.

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Georgia

1998: Number of people eligible for parole reduced.

Georgia abolished discretionary parole release for “seven non-murder deadly sins”: murder, kidnapping, armed robbery, rape, aggravated sodomy, aggravated sexual battery, and aggravated 91 child molestation. The minimum sentence for a first offense of murder was set at 25 years, and a second conviction of any of the “seven deadly sins” resulted in life without the possibility of parole.

Parole review was also denied to people sentenced under the state’s “recidivist law”, similar to Washington’s “three strikes” law, confining people to life without parole after any other fourth felony offense. This was one of the most punitive truth-in92 sentencing policies in the U.S. The policy required judges to assign sentences without consideration of the extenuating circumstances in each individual’s case and eliminated administrative discretion based on inmates’ good behavior. Although this policy only impacted people with serious offenses, it was a dramatic change in the sentences of these 93 individuals. In 1993, the average percent of the sentence served was only 42%, because many people were released through good time or parole.

By 1997, people in prison in Georgia were averaging 62% of their sentence, a substantial increase in the numbers of years spent in prison.

2015: Number of people able to access parole increased.

Nonviolent drug offenders sentenced under Georgia’s “recidivist” law were granted eligibility for 94 parole after 12 years. Political concerns about parole eligibility arose because of gross racial disparities in sentencing under the “recidivist” law: African Americans were 26 times as likely as whites to be sentenced to life. With the passage of this policy, more than 450 people will be able to go before the Parole Board for the possibility of early release.

Eligibility for consideration before the Parole Board includes: a low-risk score on the Department of Correction’s risk assessment instrument; a medium or lower housing classification; completion of all DOC programming requirements; no serious disciplinary infractions within the preceding 12 months; and a high school diploma or GED.

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Mississippi

1995: All people in prison required to serve 85% of their sentence.

Before 1995, all state prisoners in Mississippi were eligible for parole after completing 25-33% of their sentence. In 1995, Mississippi passed a truth-insentencing law eliminating access to parole for all prisoners until 85% of the original sentence was 95 completed. The requirement stripped much of the discretionary authority of the Parole Board and turned parole into an almost insignificant form of relief for people serving decades-long sentences. As a result, Mississippi’s prison population more than doubled from 11,049 people in 1994 to 21,952 in 96 2007 and corrections costs tripled.

2008: Parole reintroduced for nonviolent offenders.

People convicted of nonviolent offenses and people who had not committed multiple offenses became eligible for parole review after completing 25% of 97 their sentence. The bill was applied retroactively, allowing access to parole for everyone currently sentenced and everyone sentenced in the future for nonviolent crimes.

This immediately impacted 12% of the prison 98 population. The parole board had to quickly increase its capacity to accommodate the spike in petitions. People were released, on average, after 7 years. Of 3,076 people released by 2009, only 121 were sent back to prison, all on parole violations 99 rather than serious crimes. In the first year of the policy’s implementation, the number of people in Mississippi state prisons dropped by 5.6%.

2014: Parole risk assessment standards improved.

Although the Parole Board created an ad hoc evaluation tool in the aftermath of the 2008 policy, its qualifications for release were still not 100 standardized. In 2014, the Mississippi legislature passed a law creating an evidence-based riskassessment tool. After implementing the tool, the state saw a marked increase in the number of people released on parole and a reduction in the 101 total prison population.

The risk assessment tool helped to create more equitable standards of review, guiding people to compare measurable behaviors between petitioners, rather than perceived risk, reducing the influence of personal and racial bias.

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New Jersey

1997: People convicted of violent crimes required to serve 85% of their sentence.

2008: Parole board made more efficient to reduce years-long delays before release.

The “No Early Release Act� was passed in New Jersey in the aftermath of the federal Omnibus Crime Act of 1994 that created monetary incentives for states to 102 implement truth-in-sentencing policies. The No Early Release Act modified New Jersey’s parole board policies, requiring that anyone convicted of a violent crime in the first or second degree must serve 85% of their sentence before consideration for parole. The policy essentially eliminated discretion of the parole board.

People applying for parole review were given the option to waive their initial hearing and proceed to a 106 panel hearing. This streamlined the parole review process and reduced the some of the bureaucratic delays that have plagued parole structures throughout the country. In 2013, there were 3,380 people released from state prison on parole.

In 1999, New Jersey reached its peak prison population as more people were required to serve 103 out the entirety or majority of long sentences. A survey of 118 victims of people sentenced under the No Early Release Act found that victims expressed no more satisfaction with sentences under the new 104 policy as before the policy.

2001: Number of people excluded from parole reduced.

105

The No Early Release Act was amended. Rather than excluding everyone convicted of any first or second degree violent crime from access to parole, only people convicted of certain aggravated crimes were required to serve out 85% of their sentence.

For the purposes of interpreting 85% of a sentence, a life sentence was deemed to be 75 years. Young adult offenders, charged for a crime committed under 26 years of age, cannot be sentenced to a conviction under the jurisdiction of NERA.

People whose sentences have no mandatoryminimum can apply for parole after 33% of their sentence is served, or after 25 years for a life sentence. Someone who has a sentence with a mandatory-minimum is eligible for parole at the end of their mandatory-minimum, as long as it is longer 107 than 33% of the sentence. This resulted in a highly indeterminate sentencing structure, giving administration wide discretion in release - a 10 year sentence could be ended after 1 year, 11 months, and 5 days, under ideal circumstances and 108 behavior.

Between 2012 and 2015, New Jersey reduced its prison population by a greater proportion than any 109 other state other than Mississippi. Increased efficiency of the parole board was one of the most significant factors in the downsized prison population. More than 60% of people released from New Jersey prisons are now released through the parole board.

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The limits of existing mechanisms of early release in Washington People with long-term or life sentences in Washington and their families have very few options for relief. A small number of people - people who committed their crime before the age of 18, people sentenced before 1984, and people convicted of sex offenses after 2001 - have access to parole under the 110 Indeterminate Sentence Review Board (ISRB). The ISRB, as it is currently composed, reviews few petitions each year and has a relatively low rate of release.

Everyone else in prison in Washington can only pursue the possibility of early release through extraordinary medical placement, clemency, and governor’s pardon. These systems are not designed to review an individual’s good behavior, but instead 111 evaluate extraordinary circumstances.

Extraordinary medical placement Extraordinary medical placement pertains to people who are physically incapacitated due to a severe medical condition or age, and, as of 2009, people who will be physically incapacitated at the time of 112 their release. However, in the five years between 2005 and 2010, only 22 prisoners were released under this statute.

Clemency and Pardons Anyone can petition for the Washington State Clemency and Pardons Board, but the Board places the onus on the petitioner to demonstrate why his or her circumstances are extraordinary and warrant 113 the Governor’s pardon. There is no legal definition of “extraordinary circumstances”, leaving petitioners to guess the characteristics of their history, case, or behavior that will most influence Board and the Governor.

The exceptional burden of proof on the petitioner discourages most eligible people in prison from applying. As a result, the Board only receives 60 to 100 petitions each year, out of approximately 8,000 people with sentences longer than 10 years who could potentially benefit from applying for 114 clemency. Only a quarter of the petitions received by the board are granted a formal hearing.

Recommendations from the Clemency Board often sit with the Governor’s office for months or years 115 awaiting a decision. Clemency laws incorporate no liberty interest or presumption of release, and instead hinge on the Governor’s mercy. The Governor gains little to no political advantage under the current political conditions for granting pardon, and takes on political risk if the individual commits 116 another crime. As a result, fewer than a dozen people have ever been granted clemency in any given year in Washington.

The odds of receiving clemency are, therefore, more dependent on nature of the original crime and the political beliefs of the Governor. Throughout the U.S., there have been governors who promote their tough-on-crime image by “bragging that they do not 117 give pardons”. Others grant pardon, but “in dramatic fashion, on Christmas Eve or on their last day in office”, giving the impression that clemency is an exceptional act done out of the goodness of the Governor’s heart, rather than an administrative protocol that an incarcerated individual earns. The Supreme Court recently ruled in Graham v. Florida that clemency does not provide provide a realistic chance for release, and is, instead, “a remote possibility… [that] does not mitigate the harshness 118 of the sentence.”

The inadequacy of the clemency system in Washington, compared to a system of parole, is most evident in the recent release of Brian 119 Massey. In 1988, Massey was convicted of aggravated murder and sentenced to life in prison for a crime he committed at age 13. After 18 years in prison, Massey applied for clemency. The board recommended that his sentence be commuted to 25 years, but Gov. Gregoire dismissed the recommendation. Four years later, Massey applied again, but the board turned him down.

Massey’s luck changed when, in 2015, the Washington Legislature passed a law allowing people convicted of aggravated murder who committed the crime before age 16 to petition for a parole hearing after 25 years imprisonment. Since the law is retroactive, Massey applied for and was granted parole. He is now living well and helping his community in Seattle.

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The “extraordinary” circumstances standard for release under clemency and the political pressure put on governors to deny clemency petitions creates a nearly impossible hurdle for people to overcome, even when, like Massey, a parole board would find them releasable.

Indeterminate Sentence Review Board The Indeterminate Sentence Review Board (ISRB) is the only system designed to evaluate people for early release based on their readiness for 120 reintegration to the community. Before the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984, the Board was called the Board of Prison Terms and Parolees. It was similar in function and structure, with Board members appointed by the Governor.

121

Like most juries, appointees on the ISRB are disproportionately white. This has similar consequences for the parole release as for conviction by jury: defendants and petitioners of color are more likely to be evaluated punitively. One hundred percent of the Board members in 2016 122 were white. Two members were previous administrators for state sex offender programs, one was a community corrections officer, and the fourth was a police officer with the Spokane Police Department.

The ISRB has no explicit standards dictating the professions, experiences, or demographics that Board members must represent. There is no affirmative recruitment of people who understand the racial inequities that drive both crime and disproportionate sentencing. The selection of Board members is influenced by the Governor’s personal associations, nominees’ professional experience in corrections, and political perceptions of the nominees’ personal history. People of color and formerly incarcerated people are less likely to have access to this kind of social capital, and rarely have a place on the Board.

During ISRB hearings for people convicted before 1984, petitioners can request the assistance of 123 lawyer. This is particularly important for illiterate applicants who experience difficulty with the magnitude of evidence required in the petition. The ISRB also has a good notification policy, requiring publication of the decision within 30 days after the hearing. However, there are no requirements for the Board to be transparent about the reason for its denial and there is no standard length of time before a person is eligible to petition again.

The ISRB considers: the original recommendation of the sentencing judge and the prosecutor, the length of time the petitioner has served, the petitioner’s risk assessment score, their participation in programing, their behavior during incarceration, evidence of their change during incarceration, their plan for release, information about their original 124 sentence, input from the victim, and public safety.

Although the review criteria encourage the Board the consider the petitioner’s behavior, programming, and character since their incarceration, there are no restrictions placed on the degree to which immutable factors, like victim input and the nature of the original crime, can impact the decision.

The ISRB releases a far greater proportion of people convicted of sex crimes than people eligible for parole because they were convicted as juveniles or sentenced before 1984. Between April and September of 2016, there were 12 people sentenced before 1984 whose cases were heard by the ISRB, but only 3 were released. By contrast, the ISRB heard the cases of 194 people convicted of sex crimes, and released 87 of them. People reviewed for parolability were far less likely to be considered for release than people with indeterminate sentences 125 for sex offenses (25% vs. 45%). This suggests a different set of implicit standards for people convicted of sex offenses and is one example of the arbitrariness of the review in the absence of more specified review criteria.

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How legal scholars define a “meaningful opportunity for release” A parole review board does nothing to alleviate the crisis of mass incarceration or the pain of families separated by long sentences if it is not designed with the intent to release people who, regardless of their crime, demonstrate readiness for successful reintegration.

Parole boards are often fearful about making decisions that could be “politically unpopular” or harshly evaluated in the unlikely chance that the 126 individual reoffends. This prevents the majority of petitioners, especially people who have committed violent or high profile crimes, from achieving release. For example, in 2011, only 6.9% of people up for review were released in Ohio and only 3.5% in 127 Florida. In some states, parole is used punitively, such that most people petitioning for release are expected to undergo at least one parole denial 128 before they are approved. This unnecessarily confines people beyond the date that they are ready for release.

Dysfunctionally low rates of denial are more common when board member appointments are motivated exclusively by the Governor’s political interests, or when any future crime by an inmate approved for parole puts a board member’s job at risk. For example, California Governor Schwarzenegger was loathe to release people committed of murder charges. Although a parole board existed, less than 6% of heard by the board were released and more than 33,000 parole-eligible 129 people with life sentences remained incarcerated.

After Governor Jerry Brown took office, two to three lifers were released per day. This gross discrepancy is, in large part, a reflection of the different political persuasion of each Governor’s administration.

As seen in Figure 6, people of color are disproportionately convicted of murder and manslaughter because structural inequalities lead to higher rates of violence in communities of color (see Figure 6). Therefore, when parole boards base their decision on the politically palatable nature of the crime, or categorically deny petitioners with violent crimes, people of color have a less equitable review.

Parole boards that create false hope and inequities in parole review are not trivial inefficiencies. They have a profound impact on the morale and wellbeing of people in prison. In a notorious recent example, 70-year-old John Mackenzie appeared before a parole board ten times over 16 years.

During his sentence, he earned three college degrees, participated in prison programs, and raised $10,000 to create and manage a program that “allowed victims to speak directly to prisoners about 130 the impact of their crimes”. He maintained a relationship with his daughters throughout his incarceration, and was in regular communication with community organizations outside prison.

In spite of his record of rehabilitation, Mackenzie was denied parole every time because, 41 years earlier, he fatally shot a police officer during a burglary. In a 2015 Supreme Court ruling, Judge Rosa observed: It is undisputed that it is unlawful for the parole board to deny parole solely on the basis of the underlying conviction. Yet the court can reach no other conclusion but that this is exactly what the board did in his case. It is undisputed that this petitioner has a perfect institutional record for the past 35 years. This case begs the question, if parole isn’t granted to this petitioner, when and under what circumstances would it be 131 granted?

Mackenzie wrote to his daughter: “They are hell bent on keeping me in prison and under these conditions (this place is surely Auschwitz / Hell) and with this relentless torture, I don’t believe I’ll last 132 much longer.” On August 4, 2016, days after his tenth parole hearing, he took his own life.

Mackenzie’s suicide demonstrates the potentially devastating consequences of a parole board in which the hearing is essentially meaningless and only gives people in prison false hope.

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In 2009, the U.S. Supreme Court in Graham v. Florida ruled that the sentence of juvenile life without parole in non-homicide cases is unconstitutional because its severity is “cruel and unusual”. The court concluded: A State is not required to guarantee eventual freedom to such an offender, but must impose a sentence that provides some meaningful opportunity for released based on 133 demonstrated maturity and rehabilitation.

The court identified three distinct components of a “meaningful opportunity for review”: 1. A chance for release at a meaningful point in time, 2. A realistic likelihood of release for the rehabilitated, and 134 3. A meaningful opportunity to be heard.

Although the Graham ruling is only binding for people sentenced before the age of 18, the definition is applicable to all parole cases, since any lower standard functionally undermines legislated eligibility for review. There are remarkably consistent recommendations among legal scholars about the best practices that operationalize these standards.

A chance for release at a meaningful point in time The length of time that a prisoner must serve before becoming eligible for review determines whether the parole board has any meaningful impact on the prisoner’s experience of incarceration. In New Jersey, Mississippi, and Georgia, for example, policies that resulted in what has been considered the “abolition of parole” technically only increased the proportion of the sentence that must be served before a prisoner becomes eligible for review to 85% (see Section 2B). By contrast, universal eligibility for parole in Alabama required people to complete 33% of their sentence before review. Meaningful discretion requires eligibility for review at some point between 33 and 85% of a prisoner’s sentence.

Meaningful release must also take into consideration the length of time left in a prisoner’s life. Serving 3040 years of a life sentence may allow a prisoner to

return home before death, and it may even represent a reasonable proportion of the sentence.

However, it does not offer a realistic opportunity to live, to have a career or a family in the free world 135 before death.

The Model Penal Code, a publication of the American Law Institute, a nonpartisan association of legal scholars, suggests that people in prison should become eligible for review after 15 years of 136 confinement. This recommendations is echoed by 137 other scholars. Studies show that recidivism rates level off after 15 years of confinement (see Section 2A). Additional years of confinement have no measurable effect on the likelihood of recidivating, so there is no public safety rationale for extending the eligibility for review past 15 years, and doing so would undermine parole review as a meaningful opportunity for petitioners to spend a meaningful portion of their adult lives outside of prison.

On the other hand, review after terms of confinement much shorter than 15 years would change the function of the parole board.

Discretionary parole is a response to the “ethical and 138 utilitarian uncertainties” of long-term sentences.

In lieu of eliminating exceptionally long and punitive sentences altogether, states create parole to determine, on an individual basis, whether continued detention is necessary and just. After a long period of confinement, the board may presume that release is the most ethical and utilitarian course of action unless there is compelling evidence that the petitioner still poses a risk to public safety. By contrast, parole eligibility after two to five years would create an almost entirely indeterminate sentencing structure, which would serve a separate purpose with a different set of assumptions.

For the fairness and integrity of the parole review, eligibility should not occur before nor after 15 years.

Members of the American Law Institute expressed near consensus on this point, with only a few dissenting voices advocating for eligibility at 5 or 10 139 years. Eligibility should not be influenced by the composition of the original sentence. For example, someone serving two consecutive terms of 10 years would become eligible after 15 concurrent years, at the same time as someone serving one sentence of 20 years.

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The petitioner must also have a reasonable expectation that they could be released at their first 140 hearing. Although the parole board is under no obligation to release petitioners after their first review, they also should not categorically deny people on their first review because it renders the first date of eligibility meaningless and forces people to endure the emotional, logistical, and financial costs of petitioning an extra time for no substantive reason.

The nature of the crime is an important consideration in the petitioner’s case. The parole board use information about the crime to determine what factors are the most important indicators in the petitioner’s rehabilitation. For example, the parole board might consider whether someone convicted of a violent crime has since demonstrated a commitment to nonviolent behavior, or if someone convicted of domestic violence has since abstained from abusive relations.

If parole is denied after the first review with good cause, the petitioner should have the opportunity to improve on their merits and address any issues raised during the hearing before re-applying for review. There is also an important balance to strike in the length of time between the first and second review. If the duration is too short, the petitioner is likely to be denied because their circumstances and achievements will not have significantly changed since the last hearing. However, if the duration is too long, the sentence is at risk of becoming so long as to deny the petitioner a meaningful opportunity to have a life outside prison.

However, the original offense cannot be the only criteria for denying release. The parole hearing is 142 not meant as a retrial of the original crime.

People cannot change the crime that resulted in their incarceration, but they can take responsibility for their offense, express remorse, and demonstrate a commitment to responsible behavior. In 2008, the California Supreme Court ruled that the state’s statutory guidelines that denial of parole in any case must be supported by “some evidence” was inadequate, and added that evidence to fulfill this standard may not be solely based on the original 1423 crime.

Finally, parole discretion is meant to alleviate excessive sentencing in the instances in which continued confinement would be cruel and unnecessary punishment. It should not be used to extend the sentence beyond what the original 141 sentencing judge dictated.

For similar reasons, the role of victims of the original crime must be carefully proscribed. Victims should have a realistic and meaningful opportunity to 144 participate in the parole hearing if they so choose.

This means that the board should make a reasonable effort to inform the victim of the prisoner’s petition with enough time before the hearing for the victim to respond. Victims should have an opportunity to give input on the case to the parole board, in writing, teleconference, or in person.

A realistic likelihood for release for the rehabilitated Even if a hearing is conducted within a reasonable time, a hearing for which the outcome is functionally pre-determined, whether by the nature of the petitioner’s crime or the input of the victim, is not a real hearing. A parole hearing must consider the facts of an individual’s case, including the petitioner’s particular life circumstances and behavior since incarceration, with reason to expect that sound evidence of rehabilitation will lead to release.

However, victim’s input should be limited to the “future risk potential of the inmate and conditions of 145 release”. After 15 years, it is unlikely that the victim has remained in contact with the petitioner.

Comments on the original nature of the crime are minimally relevant to the hearing. A victim may advise on the “conditions imposed if parole is granted”, but victims should not make recommendations to grant or deny parole because it undermines the primary purpose of the hearing.

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The parole hearing is intended to assess whether the exceptional practice of detaining people for long periods of time is necessary based on the petitioner’s current behavior. Implicit bias is extensively documented throughout the criminal justice system, including in decision-making by juries, prosecutors, judges, and parole board 146 members. Unless there are structured criteria by which the parole board can assess a petitioner’s maturity and rehabilitation, people of color, especially African Americans, are less likely to be 147 positively evaluated.

Statistical risk assessments are both helpful and fraught with potential pitfalls. Studies show that a standard instrument provides a more rigorous and accurate assessment of petitioner’s risk than a parole board member’s gut instinct. However, the risk assessment questions and scoring must be transparent, so that the items that influence an individual’s parole approval or denial are not concealed by a single statistic.

The assessment should also be considered cautiously, because structural inequities mean that people of color and people in poverty are more likely to have certain marks against them. For example, young Black men are more likely to have multiple charges as juveniles before the crime that ultimately resulted in a long sentence. This says more about the neighborhood in which the individual grew up than 148 the character of that individual 15 years later.

In 2010, a bill in the Connecticut legislature proposed guidelines about the characteristics of a petitioner’s case that evidence rehabilitation, including whether the individual has: ●

● ●

Demonstrated remorse and increased maturity since the date of the commission of the crime; Contributed to the welfare of other persons through service; Made efforts to overcome substance abuse, addiction, trauma, lack of education, or obstacles that such person may have faced as a child or youth in the adult correctional 149 system.

The proposal also guides the parole board to consider the specific opportunities available to the petitioner. Certain facilities have more rehabilitative programs than others. People also do not enter prison with the same life experiences. Being drugfree is much easier for someone who was never exposed to drugs before prison, just as obtaining a GED is easier for someone who grew up attending well-funded schools. The board’s review criteria must take individual life circumstances into account.

The petitioner’s mental health also provides insight about the petitioner’s individual circumstances and risk of reoffending. An individual’s progress in their mental health management is a more telling indicator of well-being than an individual’s original diagnosis or their behavior triggered by illness before treatment.

The language used in a parole statute must be carefully chosen to reflect a petitioner’s liberty interest. The U.S Supreme Court ruled in Greenholtz v. Inmates of the Nebraska Penal & Correctional Complex that Nebraksa’s state statute did not protect the liberty interest of people in prison because it provided that a parole board “may”, rather than “shall”, release a prisoner if the specified 150 criteria are established. Under this verbiage, the criteria for release become mere suggestions and the petitioner is again left to the whims and politics of the parole board and the Governor. In order to protect the petitioner’s realistic and meaningful hearing, the review criteria should be presumptive, not advisory.

Sentences that deny people their liberty for the majority of their adult lives are a particularly cruel and extreme punishment. The American Law Institute advises that review should be conducted 151 under the “presumption of release”. The burden of proof lies with the parole board to determine why evidence supporting the necessity for continued incarceration outweighs evidence supporting the petitioner’s rehabilitation. In order to provide for public oversight and give the petitioner adequate information to improve their case before re-applying for review, each board member should specify why they denied a given case.

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A meaningful opportunity to be heard A hearing that is conducted within a reasonable amount of time, facilitated by board members with the expertise to equitably assess petitions, and guided by criteria that assure petitioners a reasonable expectation of release are still a hollow promise if petitioners do not have an adequate chance to present their case. The right people with the right standards meeting at the right time cannot make decisions based on evidence they never heard.

Studies of parole review practices across multiple states have found that most hearings last between 3 152 to 20 minutes. In a twenty-minute hearing, between input from the victim and prosecutor and deliberation by the board, the petitioner is not left much time to explain his or her particular circumstances, express genuine remorse, describe their achievements, and demonstrate their maturation. In a three-minute hearing, the petitioner is unlikely to have any time to speak at all.

In 2006, state parole boards were hearing, on average, 8,355 cases per year, or 35 cases per work 153 day. This is an inordinate amount of work for a board with nothing else to do, and most parole boards have other responsibilities, like evaluating parole violations. Presuming that board members work full-time and hear 35 cases in immediate succession all day long, each case would get no more than 14 minutes. Parole boards need to increase their membership, infrastructure, and funding to allot a more reasonable amount of time for each case.

A petitioner’s written testify may provide supplementary evidence, but it is inadequate as the primary means of communication with the board.

Petitioners must be available to answer questions and address specific concerns. Telephone and videoconferencing allow direct interaction between the petitioner and board members. However, they also lessen board members’ focus, attention, and concern. In immigration cases, videoconferencing

has been shown to reduce the chances that a 154 detainee’s asylum will be granted. Technology creates emotional distance between the decisionmaker and the applicant, making it harder for the decision-maker to thoughtfully consider the life story of the person before them. A petitioner must be able to attend in-person. This is especially true if the victim and prosecutor are permitted to attend inperson and the petitioner is not.

The board will receive information from the Department of Corrections attesting to the petitioner’s character, behavior, and assessed risk.

These materials are important contributions to understanding who the prisoner is now, rather than 15 years prior when the original crime was committed. However, misinterpretations of events or inaccuracies in the file may throw off a hearing.

The petitioner should have the right to review their DOC file and, during the hearing, rebut any 155 statements.

Although the burden of proof should sit with the parole board, to identify evidence that the petitioner still presents sufficient risk as to warrant an exceptional sentence longer than 15 years, in practice, the burden often falls on the petitioner to prove their rehabilitation. Dominant social, cultural, and political norms assume that violent offenders are more likely than not still dangerous. Presenting a case to persuade board members otherwise is an exceptionally difficult task.

This challenge is even more difficult for prisoners who face logistical barriers. Most people in prison had limited education before incarceration, have been victims of trauma throughout their lives, including during their incarceration, and suffer from depression. In particular, people who are illiterate, mentally disabled, or mentally ill cannot be expected to prepare a case without assistance. The Model Penal Code proposes that the parole board have discretion to appoint a state attorney for prisoners who are indigent or obviously unable to prepare the 156 case themselves.

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Financial costs of long-term incarceration compared to a parole review board The well-being of individuals, families, and communities should be at heart of decision-making about criminal justice reform. Parole review also makes more efficient use of state resources, relevant in the context of prison overcrowding and deficits in 157 state education spending in Washington.

A new system of parole review accessible to all inmates could substantially reduce the population serving long-term and life sentences in Washington.

Savings associated with this reduction in the prison population may take several years to realize, and there are various complex start-up and maintenance costs associated with a parole board, only some of which are considered here. Nonetheless, gross conservative estimates and evidence from other states suggest that implementing efficient and fair parole review hearings could save the state millions of dollars in the costs of corrections.

Reductions in the costs of mass incarceration Although implementation of a new parole board would have associated operational costs and additional expenditures on parole, it would ultimately result in net savings from a reduction in the prison population. It is impossible to know in advance the total reallocation of the prison population, as these figures depend on the number of people who apply for parole, the board’s efficiency in processing cases, and the proportion of parole petitions that the board approves. The following calculations estimate savings based on most likely scenarios.

In 2015, there were 6,164 people serving at least 15 years, the total number of people in state prisons 158 who may be eligible for review. Of the people serving at least 15 years, there were 704 people sentenced to life without the possibility of parole.

Another 669 people were serving de facto life sentences, which is defined by the U.S. Sentencing Commission as sentences longer than 470 months or 159 39 years.

People serving at least 15 years, but less than de facto or official life sentences

4,791

People serving de facto or official life sentences

1,373

Figure 15. The distribution of people eligible for parole in 160 Washington State in 2015.

The majority of long-term sentences, for crimes other than sex crimes, are for murder in the first or second degree and robbery or assault with a 161 firearm. In 2015, excluding life sentences, the average sentence for murder in the first degree was 429 months or 35.75 years, and 265 months or 22 years for murder in the second degree. There were about 22% more people sentenced to murder in the second degree than murder in the first degree.

Therefore, a gross approximation of the average long-term, non-life sentence might be 338 months or 162 28 years. The average length of incarceration for people sentenced to life in Washington State is 39 163 years.

Most of the people who would be impacted by parole after 15 years are serving “serious offenses� and would be held in medium or maximum security facilities. In 2015, the Washington Department of Corrections estimated that they spend anywhere 164 from $70.73 to $124.74 per offender per day.

These costs per day include health care costs but exclude administrative costs. Costs vary per facility.

Based on the number of people in each facility, the average cost for medium security facilities, excluding administrative costs, is $86.33 per offender per 165 day.

Before parole was abolished for most people in Washington, when everyone serving longer than 13 years and 4 months in prison was eligible to petition for review, ISRB board members worked full-time 166 and held hearings of 30 minutes each. In 1980, the board held 5,000 hearings.

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Not all people who petition for parole would be granted release. If the new parole board’s release rate is the same as the ISRB’s current release rate for people convicted of non-sex crimes, 25% of the 167 people who petition for review would be released.

If the new board completes even half of the hearings per year as the old ISRB, and approves 25% of the cases they hear, 625 people would be released in a given year.

Based on the current estimated non-administrative costs of $86.33 to house medium security inmates per day, one year of a fully operational parole board could save the Department of Corrections $19,694,031 in the following year. Based on the average length of non-life and life sentences for serious offenses, the average time in prison saved by 168 early release would be an estimated 15.45 years.

In this hypothetical scenario, one year of parole review would reduce corrections costs by about $304 billion over the course of time that people released through parole would have otherwise served.

As the parole review board becomes a more integral part of the release of people with long-term sentences, it could potentially reduce the state’s corrections costs by 10-35%.

Costs of a parole board In order for the board to adequately represent the diverse communities impacted by crime and incarceration, and manage the capacity of the number of people who would become eligible to petition for parole, the board may need more members than the four people who serve on the existing Indeterminate Sentencing Review Board (ISRB).

Each state sets its own salary or stipend for parole board members differently. In Alaska, for example, each parole board member is paid $250 per day, but 178 they only work when needed. For a full-time employee working 260 days per year, that would be a salary of $65,250 per person, for a total stipend

cost of $652,500 per year. Members of the independent Prisoner Review Board in Illinois earn 170 $85,886 per year, for 14 board members. The Virginia Parole Board has a much smaller membership with only three decision-making officers, but each member is compensated $112,000 171 - $120,000 per year. In New York, the salary for parole board members is around $100,000. These figures have come under public scrutiny, in correspondence with the use of parole board appointments as a form of “political patronage”, gifting close political supporters an elite position late 172 in their career. More modest salaries may be more appropriate for a more democratic and representative board.

In order to support an efficient board, other administrative staff will be necessary. In Illinois, for example, the Prisoner Review Board employees a hearing officer, a victim services liaison, six institutional liaison for communications with the Department of Corrections, three office assistants, and one office clerk. A parole board in Washington may not need as many staff because of the existing personnel resources in the Governor’s office. There may be other costs associated with transportation, file review, and hearings.

Releasing people from prison will require more funding to cover the cost of additional parole officers. Since people released through discretionary parole review are statistically less likely to reoffend even in the absence of reintegration programs, the intensive support that a parole officer would give someone on a revolving door in and out of prison may not be necessary for people released by a parole board. The American Probation and Parole Association (APPA) suggests that an appropriate caseload for moderate to high risk adults is 60 per 173 officer, or 120 per officer for low risk adults. This means a year in which 625 people are released through parole review may require 6 - 11 new parole officers.

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Recommendations Mass incarceration in Washington is at a tipping point. After thirty years of exponential growth, the rate of incarceration and the length of sentences have taken a slight downward turn, reflecting the precipice of an era of reform.

Most people today, including criminology researchers and the general public, recognize that rehabilitation is possible. The state can no longer sustain the human or financial costs of incarcerating people who pose no threat to public safety.

Expanding eligibility for parole review to the rest of the state prison population could: 









Reduce the economic burden of mass incarceration on families who are supporting their loved ones in prison and making do in single-income households; Improve the economic and social well-being of neighborhoods decimated by indiscriminate gang sweeps and overpolicing; Reduce the inequity of mass incarceration, disproportionately confining people in poverty and people of color to long sentences; Interrupt the cycle of incarceration by restoring children’s contact with their parents; and Promote a criminal justice system based on rehabilitation and healing, rather than retribution and extreme punishments.

After 15 years in prison, people should become eligible to apply for consideration before a parole board.

The board should be diverse in its representation, including people from communities of color, people who are formerly incarcerated, victims’ advocates, reentry specialists, and law enforcement. The board should be authorized to make independent decisions, as an appointed body separate from other state agencies.

Review criteria should be clearly specified to distinguish between inmates who may pose a threat to public safety and those who are clearly rehabilitated. Decisions should be based on the petitioner’s behavior, education, training, and leadership throughout his or her incarceration, rather than the original nature of the crime. A parole board hearing is not meant to be a retrial of the criminal case.

The petitioner should have a meaningful opportunity to present his or her case. This includes adequate time to speak, legal assistance, and in-person testimony.

If a petitioner adequately demonstrates that he or she provides more potential benefit to the community than risk, then he or she should be granted approval for release. Once released, the individual should be monitored and supported by a community custody officer to encourage their successful reintegration.

As the wave of parole reform sweeps the country, Washington has an opportunity to learn from the lessons of other states reintroducing or expanding parole. Although most state parole boards are still developing the mechanisms necessary to ensure an equitable and timely review, the success they have achieved in reducing recidivism rates and the total prison population is instructive.

The state has a moral and social obligation to ensure that people in prison, their families, and their communities are not suffering needlessly. A discerning board should be able to identify people with a strong commitment to positive actions and allow them to return home, to contribute to the social fabric of the community.

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Phelps, Michelle. “Rehabilitation in the Punitive Era: The Gap between Rhetoric and Reality in U.S. Prison Programs.” Law and Social Review. 45.1 (2011): 3368.

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Goldstein, Dana. “The Misleading Math of ‘Recidivism’.” The Marshall Project. 4 December 2014. <https://www.themarshallproject.org/2014/12/04/t he-misleading-math-of-recidivism#.GRrFJnSI9> Roberts, Albert, Kristen Zgoba, and Shaid Shahidullah. “Recidivism among four types of homicide offenders: An exploratory analysis of 336 homicide offenders in New Jersey.” Aggression and Violent Behavior. 12 (2007): 493-507.

Chiu, Tina. “It’s About Time: Aging Prisoners, Increasing Costs, and Geriatric Release.” Vera Institute of Justice. New York, 2010.

“Measuring Recidivism: The Criminal History Computation of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines: A Component of the Fifteen Year Report on the U.S. Sentencing Commission’s Legislative Mandate.”

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26. Kuziemko, Ilyana. “Going Off Parole: How the Elimination of Discretionary Prison Release Affects the Social Cost of Crime.” Mimeo: Harvard University, 2006.

27. Blagg, Dakota, Madison Brown, Alison Buchanan, Bryce Ellis, Olivia Gee, Andreas Hewitt, Zoe Libeskind, Katelyn Lowthorp, Alexandra Lynch, Hannah Schendeman, and Nicholas Scott. “Life without Parole Sentences in Washington State.”

University of Washington. May 2015. <https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/media/publicatio ns/UW%20Law%20Societies%20%26%20Justice%20L ife%20Without%20Parole,%20Washington%202015. pdf> 28. Ibid.

29. Boerner, David and Roxanne Lieb. “Sentencing Reform in the Other Washington.” Crime and Justice: A Review of Research. Ed. Michael Tonry. Vol. 28.

Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001.

30. Blagg et al., 2015.

31. “A Decade of Sentencing Reform: 1981-1991.”

Sentencing Guidelines Commission and the Washington State Institute for Public Policy. 1992.

32. Ibid.

33. “Reducing Racial Disparity in the Criminal Justice System: A Manual for Practitioners and Policymakers.” The Sentencing Project. 2008. <http://www.sentencingproject.org/wpcontent/uploads/2016/01/Reducing-RacialDisparity-in-the-Criminal-Justice-System-A-Manualfor-Practitioners-and-Policymakers.pdf> 34. The data excludes life sentences, so the actual average sentence length is longer than represented here, across all years.

35. Analysis by Washington CAN with data from: “Statistical Summary of Adult Felony Sentencing: Fiscal Year 2015.” State of Washington Caseload Forecast Council. January 2016. <http://www.cfc.wa.gov/PublicationSentencing/Stati sticalSummary/Adult_Stat_Sum_FY2015.pdf> 36. Blagg et al. 2015.

37. Nellis, Ashley. “Life Goes On: The Historic Rise of Life Sentences in America.” The Sentencing Project. 2013. <http://sentencingproject.org/wpcontent/uploads/2015/12/Life-Goes-On.pdf> 38. Blagg et al., 2015.

39. Adjustments to standard sentences. Section 203, chapter 7, laws of 2016 and RCW 9.94a.553 (3)(a).

40. Corning, James Harlan. “Dead Wrong: Why Washington’s Deadly Weapon Criminal Sentencing Enhancement Needs ‘Enhancement’.” Seattle University Law Review. 35 (2012): 911-948.

41. Blagg et al., 2015.

42. Shapiro, Nina. “Should Washington bring back parole?” The Seattle Times. 7 November 2015. <http://www.seattletimes.com/seattlenews/crime/washington-prison-reformers-debatebringing-back-parole/>

43. “A Decade of Sentencing Reform: 1981-1991.”

Sentencing Guidelines Commission and the Washington State Institute for Public Policy. 1992.

44. “Prison Facilities.” Washington Department of Corrections. 20 December 2016. <http://www.doc.wa.gov/corrections/incarceration/ prisons/default.htm> 45. Analysis by Washington CAN with data from: Carson, Ann and Joseph Mulako-Wangota. Bureau of Justice Statistics.Corrections Statistical Analysis Tool.

December 2016.

46. “A Decade of Sentencing Reform”, 1992.

47. Blagg et al. 2015.

48. “Facts about Offenders in Confinement.”

Washington State Department of Corrections. 30 June 2016. <http://www.doc.wa.gov/information/data/docs/fac t-card.pdf> 49. Goldstein, Dana. “Too Old to Commit Crime?” The Marshall Project. 20 March 2015. <https://www.themarshallproject.org/2015/03/20/t oo-old-to-commit-crime#.Mao3GXR10> 50. American Civil Liberties Union. “Racial Disparities in Sentencing.” Hearing on Reports of Racial in the Justice System of the United States: Submitted to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. 153rd Session, 27 October 2014. <https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/assets/14 1027_iachr_racial_disparities_aclu_submission_0.pd f> 51. Blagg et al., 2015.

52. Stith, Kate. “Principles, Pragmatism, and Politics: The Evolution of Washington State’s Sentencing Guidelines.” Law and Contemporary Problems.

76.105 (2013): 105-129.

53. Crutchfield, Robert and Gregory Weeks. “The Effects of Mass Incarceration on Communities of Color.”

Issues in Science and Technology. 32.1 (2015) 54. Analysis by Washington CAN with data from: “Statistical Summary of Adult Felony Sentencing: Fiscal Year 2015.” State of Washington Caseload Forecast Council. January 2016. <http://www.cfc.wa.gov/PublicationSentencing/Stati sticalSummary/Adult_Stat_Sum_FY2015.pdf>and “Facts about Offenders in Confinement.”

Washington State Department of Corrections. 30 June 2016. <http://www.doc.wa.gov/information/data/docs/fac t-card.pdf> 55. Analysis by Washington CAN based on data from: “Statistical Summary of Adult Felony Sentencing: Fiscal Year 2015.” State of Washington Caseload Forecast Council. January 2016. <http://www.cfc.wa.gov/PublicationSentencing/Stati sticalSummary/Adult_Stat_Sum_FY2015.pdf> 56. The data excludes life sentences, so the actual average sentence length is longer than represented here, across all years.

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57. Analysis by Washington CAN based on data from from the following sources: “Statistical Summary of Adult Felony Sentencing: Fiscal Year 2015.” State of Washington Caseload Forecast Council. January 2016. <http://www.cfc.wa.gov/PublicationSentencing/Stati sticalSummary/Adult_Stat_Sum_FY2015.pdf> Steiger, John. “Statistical Summary of Adult Felony Sentencing: Fiscal Year 2014.” State of Washington Caseload Forecast Council. March 2015.

Steiger, John. “Statistical Summary of Adult Felony Sentencing: Fiscal Year 2013.” State of Washington Caseload Forecast Council. January 2014.

Steiger, John. “Statistical Summary of Adult Felony Sentencing: Fiscal Year 2012.” State of Washington Caseload Forecast Council. December 2012.

Steiger, John. “Statistical Summary of Adult Felony Sentencing: Fiscal Year 2011.” State of Washington Caseload Forecast Council. February 2012.

“Statistical Summary of Adult Felony Sentencing: Fiscal Year 2010.” State of Washington Sentencing Guidelines Commission. January 2011.

“Statistical Summary of Adult Felony Sentencing: Fiscal Year 2009.” State of Washington Sentencing Guidelines Commission. January 2010.

“Statistical Summary of Adult Felony Sentencing: Fiscal Year 2008.” State of Washington Sentencing Guidelines Commission. January 2009.

“Statistical Summary of Adult Felony Sentencing: Fiscal Year 2007.” State of Washington Sentencing Guidelines Commission. February 2008.

“Statistical Summary of Adult Felony Sentencing: Fiscal Year 2006.” State of Washington Sentencing Guidelines Commission. February 2006.

Steiger, John. “Statistical Summary of Adult Felony Sentencing: Fiscal Year 2011.” State of Washington Caseload Forecast Council. February 2012.

“Statistical Summary of Adult Felony Sentencing: Fiscal Year 2010.” State of Washington Sentencing Guidelines Commission. January 2011.

“Statistical Summary of Adult Felony Sentencing: Fiscal Year 2009.” State of Washington Sentencing Guidelines Commission. January 2010.

“Statistical Summary of Adult Felony Sentencing: Fiscal Year 2008.” State of Washington Sentencing Guidelines Commission. January 2009.

“Statistical Summary of Adult Felony Sentencing: Fiscal Year 2007.” State of Washington Sentencing Guidelines Commission. February 2008.

“Statistical Summary of Adult Felony Sentencing: Fiscal Year 2006.” State of Washington Sentencing Guidelines Commission. February 2006.

“Statistical Summary of Adult Felony Sentencing: Fiscal Year 1999.” State of Washington Sentencing Guidelines Commission. January 2000.

58. “Children and Families of Incarcerated Parents Advisory Committee Annual Report.” State of Washington Office of Superintendent of Public

59.

60.

61.

62.

63.

64.

65.

66.

67.

68.

69.

70.

71.

72.

73.

Instruction. January 2009. <http://www.k12.wa.us/IncarceratedParents/pubdo cs/CFIP2008CommitteeReport.pdf> “Children of Parents in Jail or Prison: Issues Related to Maintaining Contact.” Office of Child Development and University of Pittsburgh. January 2011.

Petersilia, Joan. “When Prisoners Return to the Community: Political, Economic, and Social Consequences.” Papers from the Executive Sessions on Sentencing and Corrections. 2000. <https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/184253.pdf> McAra, Lesley and Susan McVie. “Understanding youth violence: The mediating effects of gender, poverty and vulnerability.” Journal of Criminal Justice. 45 (2016): 71-77.

McAra, Lesley and Susan McVie. “Understanding youth violence: The mediating effects of gender, poverty and vulnerability.” Journal of Criminal Justice. 45 (2016): 71-77.

Drucker, Ernest. The Plague of Prisons: The Epidemiology of Mass Incarceration in America. The New Press: New York, 2011.

Henderson Jamala. “Why is Seattle so racially segregated?” KUOW.org. 20 September 2016. <http://kuow.org/post/why-seattle-so-raciallysegregated> Petersilia, Joan. “Beyond the Prison Bubble.”

National Institute for Justice. 268 (2011) Crutchfield, Robert and Gregory Weeks. “The Effects of Mass Incarceration on Communities of Color.”

Issues in Science and Technology. 32.1 (2015) Clear, Todd. “The Effects of High Imprisonment Rates on Communities.” Crime and Justice. 37.1 (2008): 97132.

Crutchfield, Robert and Gregory Weeks. “The Effects of Mass Incarceration on Communities of Color.”

Issues in Science and Technology. 32.1 (2015) Clear, 2008.

Von Hoffman, Emily. “How Incarceration Infects a Community.” The Atlantic. 6 March 2015. <http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/ 03/how-incarceration-infects-acommunity/385967/> Kuziemko, Ilyana. “How Should Inmates be Released from Prison? An Assessment of Parole Versus FixedSentence Regimes.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics. (2013): 371-424.

Kuziemko, Ilyana. “Going Off Parole: How the Elimination of Discretionary Prison Release Affects the Social Cost of Crime.” Mimeo: Harvard University, 2006.

Weisberg, Robert, Debbie Mukamal, and Jordan Segall. Life in Limbo: An Examination of Parole Release for Prisoners Serving Life Sentences with the Possibility of Parole in California. Standford Law School: Stanford Criminal Justice Center. September 2011.

39 | A S e c o n d C h a n c e a t F r e e d o m

74. “2013 Outcome Evaluation Report.” California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

January 2014. <http://www.cdcr.ca.gov/Adult_Research_Branch/R esearch_Documents/Outcome_Evaluation_Report_2 013.pdf> 75. “CDCR’s Lifer Report Series: Lifer Parolee Recidivism Report.” California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. January 2013. <http://www.cdcr.ca.gov/adult_research_branch/Re search_Documents/FINAL_06_07_Lifer_Parolee_Rec idivism_1_14_13.pdf> 76. “The Impact of Parole in New Jersey.” The Pew Charitable Trusts. November 2013. <https://static.prisonpolicy.org/scans/PSPP_NJParol e-Brief.pdf> 77. “Annual Report: 2014.” LA Board of Pardons and Parole. 13 December 2014. <http://doc.louisiana.gov/media/1/2014/12/2014Board-of-Pardons-and-Parole-Annual-Report.pdf> 78. “Annual Report: 2014.” LA Board of Pardons and Parole. 13 December 2014. <http://doc.louisiana.gov/media/1/2014/12/2014Board-of-Pardons-and-Parole-Annual-Report.pdf> 79. “Annual Report: 2014.” LA Board of Pardons and Parole. 13 December 2014. <http://doc.louisiana.gov/media/1/2014/12/2014Board-of-Pardons-and-Parole-Annual-Report.pdf> 80. Porter, Nicole. “The State of Sentencing 2014: Developments in Policy and Practice.” The Sentencing Project. 2015. <http://sentencingproject.org/wpcontent/uploads/2016/02/sen_State_of_Sentencing _2014.pdf> 81. Kuziemko, Ilyana. “Going Off Parole: How the Elimination of Discretionary Prison Release Affects the Social Cost of Crime.” Mimeo: Harvard University, 2006.

82. “States are Abolishing Parole.” National Center for Policy Analysis. 13 January 1999. <http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_I D=12601> 83. Schwartzapfel, Beth. “How parole boards keep prisoners in the dark and behind bars.” The Washington Post. 11 July 2015. <https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/thepower-and-politics-of-paroleboards/2015/07/10/49c1844e-1f71-11e5-84d5eb37ee8eaa61_story.html> 84. Data from the Marshall Project and The Association of Paroling Authorities International. Graphic published in: Schwartzapfel, Beth. “How parole boards keep prisoners in the dark and behind bars.”

The Washington Post. 11 July 2015. <https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/thepower-and-politics-of-paroleboards/2015/07/10/49c1844e-1f71-11e5-84d5eb37ee8eaa61_story.html>

85. Data from the Marshall Project and The Association of Paroling Authorities International. Graphic published in: Schwartzapfel, Beth. “How parole boards keep prisoners in the dark and behind bars.”

The Washington Post. 11 July 2015. <https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/thepower-and-politics-of-paroleboards/2015/07/10/49c1844e-1f71-11e5-84d5eb37ee8eaa61_story.html> 86. “History of the Agency.” Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles. 2014. <http://www.pardons.state.al.us/History.aspx> 87. “Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles: Functional Analysis and Records Disposition Authority.”

Presented to the State Records Commission. 28 October 1998. <http://www.archives.alabama.gov/officials/rdas/pa rdonsn.pdf> 88. “Sentencing Reform Act of 2003.” Alabama Sentencing Commission. 20 June 2003. <http://sentencingcommission.alacourt.gov/Legislati on/reform_summ.html> 89. “Alabama’s Justice Reinvestment Approach: Reducing Prison Overcrowding and Strengthening Community-Based Supervision.” Justice Center: The Council of State Governments. May 2015. <https://csgjusticecenter.org/wpcontent/uploads/2015/05/AlabamasJusticeReinvest mentApproach.pdf> 90. Lockette, Tim. “Despite reform bill, increase in paroles could be years away.” The Anniston Star. 5 January 2016. <http://www.annistonstar.com/news/despitereform-bill-increase-in-paroles-could-be-yearsaway/article_7627edc2-b402-11e5-bcbdff6aef97d1e3.html> 91. Carr, Timothy. “‘Truth in Sentencing’ in Georgia.”

Georgia Department of Corrections. <http://www.dcor.state.ga.us/sites/all/files/pdf/Res earch/Standing/Truth_in_sentencing.pdf> 92. Banning, Jan. “Sentences in Georgia.” Pulaski. <http://www.janbanning.com/pulaski/sentences-ingeorgia/> 93. Ditton, Paula and Doris James Wilson. “Truth in Sentencing in State Prisons.” Bureau of Justice Statistics: Special Report. January 1999. <https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/aeaf/6c95422ce5 b1c15f20fb03edb5df8c8d2f8c.pdf> 94. Teegardin, Carrie. “New law gives chance of parole to some drug offenders.” The Atlanta JournalConstitution. 22 August 2015. <http://www.myajc.com/news/crime--law/georgiabold-step-rethinking-prisonsentences/uBqNDm3pmoGwMVcMp8vkPP/> 95. “Principles of Effective State Sentencing and Corrections Policy.” National Conference of Strong States, Strong Nation. August 2011. <http://www.ncsl.org/research/civil-and-criminal-

40 | A S e c o n d C h a n c e a t F r e e d o m

justice/principles-of-sentencing-and-correctionspolicy.aspx> 96. “Due South: Mississippi Rolling Back ‘Truth-inSentencing’; Laws.” Justice Policy Institute. May 2011. <http://www.justicepolicy.org/uploads/justicepolicy /documents/due_south_-_mississippi.pdf> 97. “Reforming Mississippi’s Prison System.” JFA Institute and Mississippi Department of Corrections.

2009.. <http://www.floridatac.com/files/document/MDOC Paper.pdf> 98. “Due South”, 2011.

99. “Reforming Mississippi’s Prison System.” JFA Institute and Mississippi Department of Corrections.

2009. <http://www.floridatac.com/files/document/MDOC Paper.pdf> 100. “State Efforts in Sentencing and Corrections Reform.” NGA Center for Best Practices. 27 October 2011. <https://www.nga.org/files/live/sites/NGA/files/pdf/ 1110SENTENCINGREFORM.PDF> 101. “Mississippi’s 2014 Corrections and Criminal Justice Reform.” The Pew Charitable Trusts. May 2014. <http://www.pewtrusts.org/~/media/assets/2014/0 9/pspp_mississippi_2014_corrections_justice_refor m.pdf> 102. McCoy, Candace and Patrick McManimon. “New Jersey’s ‘No Release Act’: Its Impact on Prosecution, Sentencing, Corrections, and Victim Satisfaction.”

U.S. Department of Justice. February 2004. <https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/203977. pdf> 103. Mauer, Marc and Nazgol Ghandnoosh. “Fewer Prisoners, Less Crime: A Tale of Three States.” The Sentencing Project. 2015. <http://sentencingproject.org/wpcontent/uploads/2015/11/Fewer-Prisoners-LessCrime-A-Tale-of-Three-States.pdf> 104. McCoy and McManimon, 2004.

105. “New Jersey State Parole Board Reference Guide.”

State of New Jersey State Parole Board. 1 July 2014. <http://www.state.nj.us/parole/docs/RefGuide.pdf> 106. “2013 Annual Report: New Jersey State Parole.” New Jersey State Parole Board. 20 March 2014. <https://dspace.njstatelib.org/xmlui/bitstream/hand le/10929/35075/parole_board_2013.pdf?sequence= 1&isAllowed=y> 107. “The Parole Book: A Handbook on Parole Procedures for Adult and Young Adult Inmates.” New Jersey State Parole Board. Fifth Edition. 1 February 2012. <http://www.state.nj.us/parole/docs/AdultParoleHa ndbook.pdf> 108. Rhine, Edward, Joan Petersilia, and Kevin Reitz.

“Improving Parole Release in America.” Federal Sentencing Reporter. 28.2 (2015): 96-104.

109. Sullivan, S.P. “How N.J. became a nationwide leader in reducing prison population.” NJ.com. 31 October 2015. <http://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/2015/10/nj_c utting_prison_populations_faster_than_most_sta.ht ml> 110. Porter, 2015.

111. “Indeterminate Sentence Review Board (ISRB).”

Washington State Department of Corrections.

Accessed September 2016. <http://www.doc.wa.gov/corrections/isrb/default.ht m#about> 112. Jenkins, Austin. “Long Sentences, Aging Inmates May Strain Washington’s Clemency System.” Northwest Public Radio. 16 July 2014. <http://nwpr.org/post/long-sentences-aginginmates-may-strain-washington-s-clemency-system> 113. “Washington State Clemency & Pardons Board Policies.” State of Washington Office of the Governor. 7 December 2012. <http://www.governor.wa.gov/sites/default/files/do cuments/policies.pdf> 114. Jenkins, 2014.

115. Shapiro, 2015.

116. Martin, Jonathan. “Gregorie, other governor reluctant to grant clemency.” The Seattle Times. 20 June 2010. <http://www.seattletimes.com/seattlenews/gregoire-other-governors-reluctant-to-grantclemency/> 117. Fetterman, Mindy. “Move is on to make End-of-Year Pardons Less Random.” The Pew Charitable Trusts. 6 January 2016. <http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-andanalysis/blogs/stateline/2016/01/06/move-is-on-tomake-end-of-year-pardons-less-random> 118. Graham v. Florida. 560 U.S. 48 (2010) 119. Lynn, Adam. “Barry Massey, teen convicted in 1987 Steilacoom murder, to go free after 27 years in prison.” The News Tribune. 4 June 2015. <http://www.thenewstribune.com/news/local/crim e/article26296945.html> 120. “Indeterminate Sentence Review Board (ISRB).”

Washington State Department of Corrections.

Accessed September 2016. <http://www.doc.wa.gov/corrections/isrb/default.ht m#about> 121. “Illegal Racial Discrimination in Jury Selection: A Continuing Legacy.” Equal Justice Initiative. August 2010. <http://eji.org/sites/default/files/illegal-racialdiscrimination-in-jury-selection.pdf> 122. “Indeterminate Sentence Review Board (ISRB) Board Members.” Washington State Department of Corrections. Accessed September 2016. <http://www.doc.wa.gov/corrections/isrb/docs/isrbboard-members.pdf> 123. “Hearings.” Washington State Department of Corrections. Accessed September 2016.

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<http://www.doc.wa.gov/corrections/isrb/hearings. htm> 124. “ISRB Frequently Asked Questions.” Washington State Department of Corrections. Accessed September 2016. <http://www.doc.wa.gov/corrections/isrb/faq.htm# pre-cases> 125. Analysis by Washington CAN with data from: “ISRB Prison Release Hearings Schedule.” Washington State Department of Corrections. Accessed December 2016.

126. Schwartzapfel, Beth. “How parole boards keep prisoners in the dark and behind bars.” The Washington Post. 11 July 2015. <https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/thepower-and-politics-of-paroleboards/2015/07/10/49c1844e-1f71-11e5-84d5eb37ee8eaa61_story.html> 127. Vilcica, Rely. “Revisiting Parole Decision Making: Testing for the Punitive Hypothesis in a Large U.S. Jurisdiction.” International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology. 5 September 2015.

128. Vilcica, 2015.

129. St. John, Paige. “As more inmate are released from prison, more parolees return.” Los Angeles Times. 27 December 2014. <http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-ffpol-lifer-parole-20141228-story.html> 130. Law, Victoria. “Suicide of 70-year-old John Mackenzie after Tenth Parole Denial Illustrates Broken System.” The Village Voice. 9 August 2016. <http://www.villagevoice.com/news/suicide-of-70year-old-john-mackenzie-after-tenth-parole-denialillustrates-broken-system-8959954> 131. Rosa, Maria. Mackenzie v. Stanford. 2015. Pp. 4-5. <http://nylawyer.nylj.com/adgifs/decisions16/06011 6rosa.pdf> 132. Mackenzie, John. Cited in Blakinger, Keri. “Cop Killer Sent Home Suicide Note before Death, Daughter Says.” Daily News. 12 August 2016. <http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/killerhome-suicide-note-death-daughter-article1.2749322> 133. Graham v. Florida. 2009. P. 3. <https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/09pdf/08 -7412Modified.pdf> 134. Russell, Sarah French. “Review for Release: Juvenile Offenders, State Parole Practices, and the Eighth Amendment.” Indiana Law Journal. 89.373 (2014): 373-440.

135. Russell, 2014.

136. Model Penal Code, 2011.

137. Rhine et al., 2015.

138. Model Penal Code, 2011.

139. Model Penal Code, 2011.

140. Rhine et al., 2015.

141. Model Penal Code, 2011.

142. Blagg et al., 2015.

143. Re Lawrence. California Supreme Court. S154018.

(2008) 144. Rhine et al., 2015.

145. Rhine et al., 2015.

146. For example: Kang, Jerry, Mark Bennett, Devon Carbado, Pam Casey, Nilanjana Dasgupta, David Faigman, Rachel Godsil, Anthony Greenwald, Justin Levinson, and Jennifer Mnookin. “Implicit Bias in the Courtroom.” UCLA Law Review. 59 (2012): 1124.

147. Mechoulan, Stephane, and Nicolas Sahuguet.

“Assessing Racial Discrimination in Parole Release.”

Dalhousie University. 19 November 2011. <http://www.lse.ac.uk/government/research/resgro ups/PSPE/pdf/Sahuguet.pdf> 148. Rhine et al., 2015.

149. “An act concerning the recommendations of the Connecticut Sentencing Commission regarding lengthy sentences for crimes committed by a child or youth and the sentencing of a child or youth convicted of certain felony offenses.” H.B. 6581.

Connecticut. 2013.

150. Greenholtz v. Inmates of Nebraska Penal and Correctional Complex. 442 U.S. (1979) 1 151. Russell, 2014.

152. Rhine, 2015.

153. Kinnevy, Susan and Joel Caplan. “Findings from the APAI International Survey of Releasing Authorities.”

Center for Research on Youth and Social Policy.

Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania, 2008.

154. Russell, 2014.

155. Ibid.

156. Model Penal Code, 2011.

157. Nicholas, Andy. “McCleary Reality Check: Legitimate Solutions Required to Fully Fund Schools.”

Washington State Budget & Policy Center. 23 September 2016. <http://budgetandpolicy.org/schmudget/mcclearyreality-check-legitimate-solutions-required-to-fullyfund-schools> 158. Shapiro, 2015.

159. Zoe Liebeskind, Katelyn Lowthorp, Alexandra Lynch, Hannah Schwendeman, and Nicholas Scott. “Life without Parole Sentences in Washington State.”

University of Washington. May 2015. <https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/media/publicatio ns/UW%20Law%20Societies%20%26%20Justice%20%20Life%20Without%20Parole,%20Washington%20 2015.pdf> 160. Calculations by Washington CAN! based on data found in Libeskind et al. 2015.

161. “Statistical Summary of Adult Felony Sentencing: Fiscal Year 2015.” State of Washington Caseload Forecast Council. January 2016. <http://www.cfc.wa.gov/PublicationSentencing/Stati sticalSummary/Adult_Stat_Sum_FY2015.pdf> 162. In 2015, there 109 people convicted of murder: 49 were convicted of murder in the first degree, 60 of

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murder in the second degree. Therefore, (429 * (49/109)) + (265 * (60/109)) = 338 months.

163. Blagg et al., 2015.

164. “Prison Capacity: 2015 Report to the Legislature.”

Department of Corrections Washington State.

February 2016. <http://app.leg.wa.gov/ReportsToTheLegislature/Ho me/GetPDF?fileName=2015%20Prison%20Capacity% 20Report%20_e0e4f2c3-fac6-43dc-a79ee15b93e71b06.pdf> 165. Airway Heights Correctional Center: $73.65 per offender per day for 2,177 people. Coyote Ridge Corrections Center: $70.74 per offender per day for 2,511 people. Monroe Corrections Center: $124.74 per offender per day for 2,445 people. Stafford Creek Corrections Center: $72.31 per offender per day for 1,936 people.

166. Blagg et al., 2015.

167. Analysis by Washington CAN with data from: “ISRB Prison Release Hearings Schedule.” Washington State Department of Corrections. Accessed December 2016.

168. (13* (4,791 / 6,164)) + (24 * (1,373 / 6,164)) = 15 years

169. Wilkerson, April and Dean Williams. “Fiscal Note: Omnibus Criminal Law & Procedure.” State of Alaska 2016 Legislative Session. <http://www.akleg.gov/basis/get_documents.asp?s ession=29&docid=51815> 170. “Boards and Commissions with Salaries or Other Compensation.” Illinois General Assembly Legislative Research Unit. August 2015. <http://www.ilga.gov/commission/lru/salaries.pdf> 171. “2014 State of Virginia Employee Salaries: Virginia Parole Board.” Richmond.com. 2016. <http://data.richmond.com/salaries/2014/state/virg inia-parole-board> 172. Gramlich, John. “Massachusetts Killing Shines Light on State Parole Boards.” The Pew Charitable Trusts.

2 February 2011. <http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-andanalysis/blogs/stateline/2011/02/02/massachusettskilling-shines-light-on-state-parole-boards> 173. “Probation & Parole FAQs.” American Probation and Parole Association. 2009. <https://www.appanet.org/eweb/DynamicPage.aspx?WebCode=VB_FA Q#2>

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A Second Chance at Freedom Punitive sentencing in Washington State and lessons from a new era of rehabilitation and parole

Margaret Diddams, Ph.D. January 2017

Washington Community Action Network Washington CAN! 1806 E Yesler Way Seattle, WA 98122 206-389-0050 washingtoncan.org facebook.com/washingtoncommunityactionnetwork twitter.com/washingtoncan

Washington Community Action Network organizes people directly impacted by racial, social, economic, and gender inequity to defend the wellbeing and self-determination of their communities.