Michigan’s tough attitude against paroling prisoners is costing
taxpayers millions of dollars without making the state any safer, a new
study contends.
Amid yet another round of state budget cuts this month, a
first-of-its kind analysis castigates the Michigan Parole Board for its
reluctance to release eligible inmates who have served several years
beyond their minimum sentence.
Prisons are big business, comprising 5 percent of Michigan’s $38.6
billion budget and employing one in three state workers. Taxpayers this
year spent $497 million warehousing the 17,000 of the state’s 50,000
inmates who are eligible for parole.
“We certainly are not advocating that everyone automatically should
be paroled the minute they are eligible,” said Barbara Levine, executive
director of the Citizens Alliance on Prisons & Public Spending, a
nonprofit policy group based in Lansing that produced the study using
state data. The group argues money spent on prisons could be better used
to prevent crime and rehabilitate criminals.
But “the pendulum (to incarcerate) has swung so far, and our concern
is that parole board members, legislators, the corrections department
have got themselves in a box.”
Russ Marlan, a spokesman for the parole board, countered that it is
keeping the growing population of criminals convicted of violent crimes
and sex crimes away from the public.
The board’s 10 members are simply following the law, Marlan said.
“The way the law is written, it says they shall not release anyone on
parole unless they have reasonable assurance that the person is not a
threat to public safety or a menace to society,” he said. “It is a
subjective process, and the law stipulates some factors that they shall
consider. The members are appointed and can make these decisions on
their professional judgment and discretion.”
The report criticizes the state for:
* Holding prisoners in legal limbo by refusing to deny or grant
parole and instead writing “no interest” on files.
* Regularly denying parole to inmates based on the nature of their
crimes, a consideration already weighed by judges and prosecutors during
sentencing.
* Costing taxpayers an extra $7 million by releasing nearly 1,000
prisoners on “fixed-date” paroles. The policy is one that sets inmates
free at a later date, which is sometimes used for prisoners the board
concludes need more time to prepare for their release. But it forces
prisoners to serve an average of four more months.
* Holding 3,645 parole violators returned to prison for technical
violations that could be as simple as missing an appointment. This group
represents more than 20 percent of all prisoners eligible for parole.
More than a half are serving time for drugs or nonviolent crimes.
Other states are realizing how costly lengthy sentences have become,
said Mary Morash, a professor and director of criminal justice studies
at Michigan State University.
“There does seem nationally to be a public swing away from holding
people since it takes money away from education and mental health
programs that can get to the causes of crime in the first place,” she
said.
‘A lot of factors’
Some circuit judges and defense lawyers say Michigan’s parole board
members are paralyzed by fear they will release the wrong person.
“They are ducking their responsibility and not making judgments at
all, and just not releasing people,” said Frank Eaman, a Harper Woods
lawyer who has successfully challenged the board’s actions in court to
gain the release of a client. “It’s just easier to pass on people.
Inevitably, somebody is going to get out of prison and commit a crime,
and the parole board doesn’t want to be blamed for anything. The easiest
way is to never let anyone out.”
Marlan said, however, the law requires the board to consider the
offense, the prisoner’s conduct and attitude and criminal record in
considering whether to grant parole.
“There are a lot of factors they consider. They are not just making
decisions just to keep beds occupied. They don’t grant or deny paroles
based on that,” he said.
The Granholm administration has ordered an end to the practice of
“fixed-date” parole as part of a new approach to releasing prisoners,
Marlan said.
Corrections professionals are now working to better prepare prisoners
for release in a program with the departments of Community Health, Labor
and Economic Growth, the Family Independence Agency and the Secretary of
State.
“The idea is to have them set up health care, get an ID, line up a
job and place to stay before they come before the parole board,” Marlan
said.
System revamped
The parole backlog can be traced to 1992, when former Gov. John
Engler revamped the system.
Reacting to outrage over the killings in Oakland County of four young
women by paroled sex offender Leslie Allen Williams, Engler replaced the
seven-member professional civil service board with 10 political
appointees chosen to follow tighter guidelines.
The former board released 68 percent of prisoners at their earliest
release date. That number has dropped to 48 percent with the new board.
“Some people are model prisoners and commit new crimes when they get
out, others have spotty prison records and are model citizens after they
are released,” Levine said.
One reason for the smaller number of prisoners released is because
more inmates convicted of violent or sex crimes are coming into the
system now than a decade ago, when parole regulations were tightened up,
said Marlan. In 1990, 61 percent of prisoners serving sentences for
violent crimes were paroled, compared with 35 percent in 2000. The
percentage of sex offenders paroled in that period dropped from 46
percent to 10 percent.
One of those constantly rebuffed for parole is Robert James Coleman,
now known as James R. Percy, who has served 27 years for an unarmed
robbery of a store clerk that netted him $62.
Last year, without interviewing Percy, the board wrote it wasn’t
interested in paroling him and scheduled another review for August 2006.
At that point, Percy will have served more than 30 years for walking
into the Marwell Book Store on Cass Avenue in Detroit and announcing a
robbery on March 10, 1976.
Percy wasn’t armed, but he kept his left hand in his pocket as though
he was. Charged with armed robbery, he rejected a plea bargain that
would have freed him 20 years ago.
Because Percy was on probation at the time for a similar robbery,
Judge John Patrick O’Brien sentenced him to life in prison.
Percy is now 53 years old and remains in the Macomb Correctional
Facility. He has a generally good behavior record for the last eight
years.
“I don’t deserve to grow old and die in prison for my crime,” Percy
said in a letter to The Detroit News. “I’m not saying I didn’t deserve
to do some time, maybe several years with some kind of further education
and vocation training, but to write me off as worthless and see no spark
or potential of rehabilitation in me, and lock me up and throw away the
key and spend more than $700,000 on my incarceration, is cruel and
unusual punishment.”
Percy’s wife, Judith Claxton, said she and his sister could provide a
stable home life for Percy if he were released.
The 10-member parole board votes on whether to release lifers like
Percy, and he has not been able to get the support of a majority, said
Marlan, the parole board spokesman. The board simply said it was not
interested in granting him parole.
Seeking ‘better method’
Percy is one of the state’s 834 “parolable lifers” who are not
serving mandatory life sentences for crimes such as first-degree murder.
Historically, those with good prison records could be eligible for
parole after 10 years and regularly were freed before 20 years.
But after 1992, the board grants interviews to lifers only after 10
years and every five years after that. Even then, they frequently refuse
to interview inmates and often make decisions based solely on their
files.
Percy has not seen anyone from the parole board in seven or eight
years.
Wayne County Circuit Judge Bruce Morrow said the parole board needs
to do more to evaluate inmates.
“Is there a better way to see if a person deserves to be paroled? I
think that is the question, and I say yes, we can construct a better
method rather than just looking at a paper file. We are not utilizing
all the resources we have to support that decision,” Morrow said.
The reforms also allow parole board members to express “no interest”
in paroling inmates, ordering them to serve another five years without
giving any reason for denying parole.
Prospects of parole
Life sentences mean just that to the parole board, an interpretation
that has angered judges and prosecutors who offered plea deals on those
sentences with the understanding that defendants like Percy would be
paroled after at least 10 years.
Last year, the State Bar of Michigan surveyed current and retired
Circuit Court judges across the state as well as judges from Detroit’s
old Recorder’s Court on the board’s positions on parolable life
sentences.
Of the 95 judges who anonymously responded, two-thirds said the
prospect of parole for deserving defendants was a factor in their
imposing life sentences. A majority said they thought the defendants
would be released in 10, 12 or 15 years.
Last year, O’Brien, who sentenced Percy nearly three decades ago,
filed an affidavit with the parole board in support of freedom for Kevin
White, a 17-year-old he sentenced to life for second-degree murder in
1985.
White and a 15-year-old were running with a gang when they shot and
killed a 22-year-old man outside Kettering High School. White pleaded
guilty in a plea bargain and was sentenced to parolable life with the
understanding of his lawyer, the prosecutor and O’Brien that he would
serve no more than 12 years.
White has an unblemished prison record, said his attorney, Paul C.
Louisell.
But last year, the board said it had no interest in his case and
decided he should spend another five years in prison.
“He (White) is 35 years old now, and he is certainly not the same
person that went to prison 18 years ago,” Louisell said.
In his affidavit to the parole board, O’Brien wrote: “Had I intended
that Mr. White serve more than 15 years in prison. ... I would not have
consented to the sentence bargain agreed to by the prosecutor and
defense attorney. ... It was my intent that Mr. White serve no more than
15 years in prison when I sentenced him to parolable life in prison.”
You can reach Norman Sinclair at (313) 222-2034 or
nsinclair@detnews.com.
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