When prisoners are released on parole, they are required to meet many
conditions, such as reporting regularly to a parole officer, keeping a
curfew, not using drugs, participating in treatment programs and not
associating with known felons. They also must not engage in any
unlawful conduct, however minor it may be. Such conditions, although
reasonable on their face, can be difficult to meet, especially for
people who lack resources, transportation or a structured support system or who are returning to a community where many friends and family
members are also ex-offenders. A violation of conditions can
result in parole being revoked and the person’s return to prison.
Revocation is not the only option. A whole range of progressive
sanctions are available, including counseling to resolve the cause of
the violation, closer supervision, substance abuse or mental health
treatment, community service, or even 70 days at one of the MDOC’s technical rule violator centers. It is up to the parole officer
to decide, based on criteria supplied by the MDOC’s Field Operations
Administration, whether to recommend revocation. It is then up to the
parole board to decide whether to revoke parole. Once a person is
returned to prison, whether and when to grant parole again is also up to
the board.
During the 1990s, the board adopted a “get tough” attitude with
technical parole violators. The number of technical violators
brought back to continue serving their original sentences rose from
1,660 in 1992 to 3,293 in 2002. The average time served before
re-parole rose from 10 months to 20 months. In 2003, the MDOC changed
the revocation criteria that parole officers apply. As a result, the
number of people being returned for technical violations has dropped by
nearly 50 percent, back to historical levels. Nonetheless, as of May
2003, people who had been released once but violated the conditions of
supervision filled more than 3,600 prison beds.
By
definition, technical parole violators have already served the
punishment required for their crimes. Their prior convictions and
institutional records have already been assessed, and they have not been
convicted of new offenses. Yet when the parole board reviews these
prisoners, it applies the same parole guidelines it used in making the
original release decision. It then frequently denies re-parole citing
the fact that the person failed under community supervision. Under this
“you had your chance and blew it” approach, people sometimes spend more
time in prison for the parole violation than they served for their crime
in the first place.
Since
the purpose of parole is to insure that prisoners re-entering the
community do not re-offend, reasonable rules of supervision, reasonably
applied, must be enforced. However, “zero tolerance” of infractions is
not realistic, given both the enormous obstacles ex-offenders typically
face and the high cost of a return to prison for parolees, their family
members, and taxpayers. Since there is no evidence that alternative
methods are not equally effective, revocation should be used only as a
last resort. Decisions to revoke parole and to deny re-parole should be
evaluated for their reasonableness under the circumstances and measured
against other available options. Even when revocation is appropriate,
how many additional months or years a person should serve for a
technical violation remains an important question for parolees and
taxpayers.
