By Justin Horwath
The Santa Fe New Mexican
SANTA FE, N.M. — Only half of female prison inmates in New Mexico were paroled on time, spending months in prison after their scheduled release date, an advocacy group told lawmakers Monday.
Officials with the New Mexico Women’s Justice Project urged state legislators on the Courts, Corrections and Justice Committee to end the practice of “in-house parole” outlined in the project’s report.
The advocates said the state could have saved roughly $2.8 million if the New Mexico Corrections Department had released on time the 231 women who instead were kept on in-house parole during the 2014 budget year.
“Since 2007, hundreds of New Mexicans have languished in prison after serving their time, simply because their release on parole was delayed,” says the report, titled “Months Late; Millions Wasted.”
The document cites a Legislative Finance Committee report’s estimate that 290 male and female inmates whose releases were delayed during budget year 2014 cost taxpayers $10.3 million.
“That’s quite a bit of money,” Judy Rosenstein, a board member of the group, told lawmakers. “And one of the important reasons this has occurred is there are insufficient staff caseworkers.”
Her group says it based its findings on a review of records it obtained from the New Mexico Corrections Department and New Mexico Adult Parole Board through the Inspection of Public Records Act. It focused on the budget year that ran from July 1, 2013, through June 30, 2014. Collectively, the 231 women who served “in-house parole” spent an additional 28,982 days in prison, the study found.
Melissa Ortiz, deputy director of adult parole for the Corrections Department, said many of those inmates served sentences shorter than 210 days — the time frame in which parole planning must begin for inmates before they are released.
Parole hearings are supposed to be held within 90 days of an inmate’s release, a practice the New Mexico Women’s Justice Project says occurred in 11 percent of the 438 cases it studied.
Ortiz said the department has brought down the number of inmates serving in-house parole “tremendously.”
“Sometimes we don’t get those parole plans approved and sometimes we don’t get it on the docket because of the short sentence,” Ortiz told lawmakers.
Sherry Stephens, director of the Adult Parole Board, which sets parole conditions and approves inmate placements into parole, told lawmakers that it is up to the Corrections Department to let the board know who is available for parole.
“By the time it gets to us, there could be a little bit of a lag,” she said.
Rep. Moe Maestas, D-Albuquerque, said he believes the department’s parole practice is “opening itself up to a lawsuit.”
But he said he believes the law might be on the department’s side because, as written, it says the department “may” release inmates on parole, instead of “must.”
He called for a change to that language so the department is mandated to release inmates on time.
Sen. Bill O’Neill, D-Albuquerque, called the figure of 50 percent of late parole releases for female inmates “stunning.” He said a big part of the problem is a lack of programs, such as halfway houses, that could serve newly released inmates.
Some 35 percent of the female inmates held on in-house parole during budget year 2014 served time for drug or alcohol offenses, the report states, while 30 percent served time for property crimes. Violent crimes accounted for 21.4 percent of cases.
Copyright 2015 The Santa Fe New Mexican