28-05-2025
Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles issues proposed parole guidelines
A prison corridor in Holman Correctional Facility in 2019. The Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles earlier this month issued new parole guidelines shortly after the Alabama Legislature made their funding contigent on their development. (File)
The Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles earlier this month published an updated version of parole guidelines, weeks after the Alabama Legislature voted to make the board's funding conditional on their development.
The state determines whether a person should be recommended for parole based on a a point system that accumulates based on a person's predicted risk for recidivism and whether that person will endanger the public. If applicants receive a score of at least 8, the guidelines recommend they be denied. Under the proposed guidelines, With the proposed guidelines under consideration, the parole guidelines recommend that people be denied parole if they receive a score of 9 or higher.
The changes add weight to the crime committed by the applicant. Based on the current guidelines, those who commit the most severe crimes receive two points, but the updated guidelines increase it to four points. A severe offense using the current guidelines is given two points. That is the same number of points in the proposed guidelines for an offense characterized as moderate.
SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
The new guidelines also use the Ohio Risk Assessment System or the Sex Offender Risk Assessment, which are the same as the current guidelines. However, the updated proposal does not consider a risk assessment from the Alabama Department of Corrections, the institution that most closely tracks the applicant's behavior while incarcerated.
Messages seeking comment were left Tuesday with the Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles and Sen. Clyde Chambliss, R-Prattville, who chairs the Legislative Joint Prison Oversight Committee, and who has also criticized the parole board. Chambliss introduced the budget amendment that required the board to issue the new guidelines to receive funding.
The parole guidelines remain voluntary, and members of the parole board have the authority to deny parole to applicants even though the guidelines recommend they be afforded parole.
Some legislators and criminal justice advocates Tuesday had specific problems with some of the criteria, such as weighing the severity of the crime more heavily than in the past to other factors, from a person's age to the risk assessment from the Alabama Department of Corrections. Those considerations were not included in the new guidelines.
Rep. Chris England, D-Tuscaloosa, a longtime critic of the board's relatively low parole rates, said Tuesday the new guidelines seemed aimed at increasing the board's 'conformance rate,' or the frequency at which its decisions align with parole guidelines. The board's rate has been at roughly 20% for the past several years.
'I think it is unfortunate the new guidelines don't take into account all the things that some of the applicants have done in order to gain their freedom,' he said.
England also called it 'odd' that Corrections' assessment was not included.
'The Department of Corrections basically allows someone to work unsupervised everyday offsite and leave for 72 hours at a time and earn that trust from the Department of Corrections, that the Board doesn't appear to take that into account,' he said.
Others said the guidelines do not capture factors that weigh in the applicants' favor, particularly in the section that measures an applicant's behavior while incarcerated. According to the proposed guidelines, a person can receive points for sanctions for both violent and nonviolent actions known as disciplinaries within the past 12 months.
'There are people who have not gotten any disciplinary infractions for the past 10 years or five years and that hard work will not count in their favor for parole,' said Carla Crowder, executive director of Alabama Appleseed, a criminal justice reform organization. 'The restriction to evaluating only 12 months of institutional behavior then serves as a disincentive to follow the rules over the long term.'
Another concern is the re-entry plan. Applicants will receive a penalty totaling either one or two points if they submit a reentry plan that is not complete. But to submit a completed reentry plan, it must include both work and home plans.
'It is very difficult for people to gain employment if they are still incarcerated,' Crowder said, explaining that the lack of a job plan should not count against someone, especially people who have no access to online resources to apply for employment or to reentry staff to assist them in that process.
By that logic, applicants will automatically be awarded at least one point counted against them for parole.
Critics also say the guidelines penalize applicants if anyone from the public, regardless of whether they are the victim or not, speaks against them. The Alabama Attorney General's Office as well as a staff member from Victims of Crime and Leniency (VOCAL), a victims' rights group, regularly attend the parole hearings to oppose parole.
Oftentimes, VOCAL does speak with the applicant and bases their recommendations solely on the person's criminal record.
'Also, all the evidence suggests that a person's chances of committing another crime decreases dramatically with age, and there is no section in the parole guidelines where old age is a factor,' Crowder said. 'This is a missed opportunity.'
Criminal justice reform advocates, and more recently legislators, have been increasingly concerned with a dramatic decrease in the number of paroles the board has granted in recent years.
There will be a public comment period on the proposed updates for the next month. If a legislator has an issue with the proposals, the person can ask that they be reviewed by the Legislative Council who can either reject them entirely, amend them, or accept them.
SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
