II. Strengthen Parole Programs
III. Require Efficiency and Accountability
a. Match the guideline-recommended parole levels to actual release rates.
TBPP must evaluate cases according to risk level and avoid releasing high-risk offenders too early or low-risk offenders too late. Effective use of the guidelines would provide parole panels more time to evaluate remaining cases where a decision might be tougher to reach.[i] Furthermore, following the guidelines would allow prisons to retain more high-risk offenders (Levels 1-4) in custody, which would increase public safety while decreasing pressure for additional prison capacity. To best ensure TBPP increases release rates in accordance with their own guidelines, policy-makers should modify them to create a presumption for parole for Level 6 and 7 offenders.
b. Create and maintain a presumptive parole roster.
Policy-makers should instruct TBPP to create a range in the guidelines that is presumptive for parole, unless some salient factors specified in legislation are not met. In other words, although the Parole Board should still have discretion to deny parole for offenders falling within the presumptive ranges of the guidelines, the general expectation should be that parole is granted for low-risk, low severity offenders.
Specifically, for Level 6 and 7 offenders, parole officers should review each offender’s case and flag those that may require further review by the entire parole board. Cases should be flagged if the offender has disciplinary problems, sex violations, gun involvement, or is a member of a gang; in addition, a case should be flagged if the offender physically injured a victim, if a victim or local official protests the parole, or if the offender will have housing or placement problems on release.
Unless a case is flagged for further scrutiny, the names of Level 6 and 7 offenders eligible for parole should be submitted to the parole board on a weekly or monthly basis with the presumption that these offenders will be released. These individuals should then be granted parole if any single board member votes in favor of release. Offenders whose cases were flagged should be further examined before parole is considered; later, those cases can also be approved with one vote from any board member.
II. Strengthen Parole Programs.
One factor that TBPP claims is contributing to low parole release rates is the insufficient number of treatment and reentry facilities that exist to place parolees, which forces TBPP to act as a bottleneck for prisoners who are qualified for release. As such, we must untie the hands of TBPP members who want to fulfill their responsibility to the state. The following programs should be implemented or expanded to provide the necessary resources for release:
a. Personal responsibility initiatives.
Texas must expand personal responsibility programs that facilitate successful reentry to reduce rates of recidivism and bolster parolee success. These include adult education programs, job placement programs, financial management programs, and housing assistance programs.
b. DWI prevention programs.
Instead of building a new medium-security facility that would cost $62.9 million, Texas should use the money to fully strengthen existing inpatient and outpatient treatment programs that focus on treating alcohol addictions that lead to habitual DWIs. The state should also mandate the installation of ignition interlock devices in personal vehicles of habitual DWI offenders in order to prevent them from starting their cars when intoxicated. Note: ignition interlock has not been proven effective for first time DWI offenders.
III. Require Efficiency and Accountability
a. Reduce “time served” for offenders incarcerated because of technical probation revocations.
Probationers revoked for technical violations should become eligible for parole after either 1 year or after the length of the current computation, whichever time period is shorter.
b. Increase use of “Medical Special Needs” parole.
For parolees who are terminally ill and are no longer a threat to society, Texas should repeal the requirement that an offender must be within 6 months of death to be removed from prison, as well as use GPS tracking in conjunction with placement in a nursing facility or hospice to monitor the parolees’ whereabouts.
c. Improve communication strategies between juvenile, probation, and parole departments.
Some families have multiple members under the supervision of different authorities. (For example, a father can be on parole for substance abuse while his son or daughter is on juvenile probation.) However, as is often the case, these different authorities do not communicate with each other, due in part to the absence of uniformity of data sets across agencies. Departments must be given incentives and provided with resources to share information, making their supervision strategies more effective, and better assisting judges and treatment providers. Ultimately, creating gateways of communication between departments will allow supervisors to coordinate efforts with regards to families, in turn decreasing the likelihood that the individuals under supervision will re-offend. The goal of information sharing should be to provide a holistic service to increase the success rate of those under supervision.