NCJ Number
85062
Date Published
1974
Length
4 pages
Annotation
Courts and law enforcement often force a parole board to act in their stead so that parole decisions are not based only on eligibility, thus creating conflicts of interest in parole decisionmaking.
Abstract
In dealing with parolees charged with new crimes, courts often pass the responsibilities of imposing sentence and setting bail to the parole board; for example, in Massachusetts, parolees convicted of lesser offenses and occasionally violent felonies regularly receive suspended sentences or have their cases filed as a mechanism for turning these parolees over to the parole board with the expectation that the board will in effect impose sentence by revoking parole and sending the parolee back to prison. The parole board, however, should be considering revocation, reparole potential, and alternatives to incarceration. The board is also often given the responsibility of deciding whether an accused should be preventively detained. Given the high constitutional standards imposed for preventive detention, this is an unfair burden to place on the board. Also, most parole boards usually consider favorably a prospective parolee's helpfulness to law enforcement, rationalizing that the parole prognosis is better since the person for his own safety will probably avoid former criminal associations and that his helpfulness mitigates against the punishment factor in parole decisionmaking. This factor, however, distorts the assessment of parole factors which compose a parole board's implicit or explicit paroling policy. Further, community treatment programs, such as halfway houses and outpatient programs, expect parole boards to support their programs by automatically revoking parolees who fail to meet program expectations. Parole boards should make others in the criminal justice system aware of the parameters of the board's responsibilities and refuse to accept responsibilities that should be performed by other criminal justice components.