The Union Leader
CONCORD, N.H. — Jacob Lasalle, out on parole after serving time for selling cocaine, failed to report to his parole officer and absconded for three years.
“We will set you back a year and recommend you be re-evaluated for any program,” said Pierre J. Morin, a former Coos County Attorney who sits on the New Hampshire Adult Parole Board. “Good luck.”
On parole only two months for conspiracy to commit burglary and witness tampering, Felix Guzman violated the terms of his release when he stole linens from an employer. Citing his criminal record, including being out on bail for attempted murder in Lawrence, Mass., the board gave him a one-year setback.
“Good luck,” member Alan Coburn said. “We’ll see you in a year.”
The 16 men and three women in parole revocation hearings Tuesday at New Hampshire State Prison in Concord show the folly of a bill to reform probation and parole law, according to these parole board members and the board’s executive assistant, John F. Eckert.
Under the proposed law change, a parolee who violates his or her conditions can only be returned to prison for no more than 90 days, regardless of the nature or seriousness of the violation, Eckert said.
“The discretion appears to be taken away,” said Kathryn McCarroll, one of seven members on the parole board, an independent agency. “They’ve been given chance after chance after chance.”
Going head to head
The controversy pits board members, who are appointed by the governor, against some political elites. The bill’s sponsors include Senate President Sylvia Larsen, D-Concord, Senate Republican Leader Peter Bragdon of Milford, House Speaker Terie Norelli, D-Portsmouth, and Rep. Stephen Shurtleff, D-Penacook, the chairman of the House Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee.
The Senate passed the bill last week. Shurtleff’s committee is scheduled to hold a hearing on it today at 10 a.m. in Room 202-204 of the Legislative Office Building.
Supporters say the legislation is an effort to increase public safety, strengthen community supervision and reduce recidivism.
It targets a prison population that has grown 31 percent over the past decade and a state prison annual budget that has doubled over that time.
Probation and parole revocations account for 57 percent of all admissions to state prison, according to “Justice Reinvestment in New Hampshire,” a report released in January by the Council of State Governments Justice Center.
The report was produced at the behest of Gov. John Lynch, Supreme Court Chief Justice John T. Broderick Jr., and legislative leaders. Its authors concluded that people are held in the state’s prison system “unnecessarily after they have served 100 percent of their minimum sentence, costing taxpayers an estimated $20 million a year.”
Paying for it all
Parole board members interviewed after the revocation hearings on Tuesday said change is necessary.
Beyond possible loss of discretion, they questioned why the bill did not include an appropriation for expanded treatment and counseling of inmates upon release.
The Justice Center study found that, unlike many other states, no state dollars are appropriated to the New Hampshire Department of Corrections for “electronic monitoring, rapid drug testing, substance use treatment or intermediate sanction facilities to monitor, treat, and sanction people on parole and probation.”
Yesterday, however, Corrections Commissioner William L. Wrenn and Attorney General Michael A. Delaney announced there would be about $2 million available to support such inmate release programs as part of the pending legislation.
The challenges of prison crowding and ballooning costs are not unique to New Hampshire.
These issues are complicated by an increase in the number of inmates with substance abuse and mental health problems, according to the “Justice Reinvestment in New Hampshire.”
Parole: It’s a privilege
During the parole revocation hearing Tuesday, more than half of those appearing before the parole board were there for at least one violation related to drug or alcohol use.
One of them, a 39-year-old woman who had been paroled only 14 days, had quit her job and resumed using heroin, her parole officer reported.
She said her parolee told her, “You don’t arrest people anymore for using.”
Referring to that report during an interview, McCarroll said, “The word out there is that it doesn’t matter.”
That case, and a raft of others like it, helps parole board members explain another reason why they oppose the proposed change in law: Parole is a privilege to be earned through good behavior and participation in counseling or treatment programs.
Without that incentive, or deterrent, Coburn said there could be more burden placed on probation and parole officers, as well as correctional officers in their work to maintain order in prison.
“I don’t think this has been thought out well,” he said.
Copyright 2010 The Union Leader