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August 23, 2017

A Former Parole Commissioner on Aging & Changing

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by Barbara Hanson Treen (NYS Parole Commissioner for 12 years)

We’ve heard for years that all the cells in our bodies regenerate every seven to ten years. Can we assume then, that our moral and emotional compasses are also capable of transforming over time? Not according to parole commissioners who keep large numbers of aging long-termers warehoused in prison, based only on what individuals did years ago, rather than who they are now.

In New York State, people of conscience are watching to see how six recent appointees to the Board of Parole will make release decisions. Will they respect transformation? It is too late for John MacKenzie, a model prisoner who died by suicide at the age of 70 after 40 years incarcerated and ten repeated parole denials. Tragically, John Mackenzie is the human sacrifice that underscores the broken parole system.

As a NYS Parole Commissioner for 12 years some time ago, it was unusual for me to meet a parole candidate over the age of 50. Last year, of 52,344 women and men in the state’s correctional facilities, 10,140 (19%) were 50 and older, despite the decline in the overall prison population. The number of elderly incarcerated has increased 98% since 2000, at least partially reflecting the board’s unwillingness to release in spite of parole applicants having met their minimum allowable sentence. Life on the back of a sentence appears to give a pass to the Commissioners, who have been unwilling to accept transformation in human behavior and are too politically motivated to practice their job, risk assessment. Thus we have prison hospitals and infirmaries filled with long-termers languishing through the years even though their risk of reoffending is 1%. And the health care costs for the prisons have increased 20 percent from three years ago to $380 million dollars today—an increase of $64.5 million.

If the parole board doesn’t trust in people’s transformation—supported by their proof of advanced education, program involvement, clean disciplinary records and so on—perhaps they’ll believe in new evidence that is also coming of age from a field of science through brain scan research: neuroplasticity. Simply stated, it is a scientific development that shows that the brain has the ability to change and heal as it is subjected to new experiences. Much is coming to light in the medical community about this study with implications of change for ADD and Parkinson’s Disease.

But as important in our criminal justice community is the possibility that people can become entirely different in their behaviors. This change occurs in the brain on its own physically with exposure to life’s surrounding stimulus over time. I would guess that 80% of 77,000 interviews I participated in as a commissioner were with people who suffered early life traumas such as sex abuse, violence, and concussions. Our older imprisoned have gained maturity, non-violent adaptive behaviors and more often the punishing effect of their crimes on them and their families, leading them to introspection over time. They become different people by demonstrating different responses.

The repeat parole hearings of candidates echo the retelling of the crimes that brought them to these places, crimes that are most often horrendous. And while the penalties for these crimes can never satisfy the need to restore a victim or render survivors of crime whole, the court-sanctioned sentence is our accepted legal calibration for punishment.

Can continuing denials amounting to 30 or 33 years beyond a sentence change the crime? Can 10, 13, 17 times before the board expressing redemption and remorse make a person any more prepared to face the community? No, it makes them older and sicker and some don’t even recall why they are there.

These aged are mostly invisible people. On paper, we don’t see their limps, their dementia, their physical impairments, their addled senses, their diminished capacities. They bring with them all the hope it takes to describe their transformation and regret to the parole board, although it will probably result in the same denial based on the “nature of the crime.” And the category of those aging, the women and men aged 50 and older, grows.

Perhaps the Parole Board can examine the possibility of the growth of their own hearts and brains among their new colleagues.

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Filed Under: article, slideshow, Uncategorized Tagged With: aging in prison, elders, New York State Board of Parole, older people in prison, older prisoners, parole, parole board, parole commissioners, seniors

May 24, 2016

The Prison Population We Should Talk About Releasing

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President Barack Obama has made reducing the prison population one of his top agenda items during his final term in office. – AP/David Goldman, JUSTICE

Given his recent granting of clemency to 58 prisoners, many of whom were serving time on federal drug offenses, the President has made it clear he doesn’t want non-violent drug offenders serving long sentences. He’s also made the case that reducing sentences for non-violent drug offenders is an important part of reform and cutting the financial cost of the U.S. criminal justice system.

But criminal justice researchers say that non-violent offenders are not the prison population we should be focusing on when it comes to long-term criminal justice reform.

“The president is significantly mistaken,” Stanford University Law Professor Robert Weisberg told ATTN:.

For successful long-term criminal justice reform, the U.S. needs to consider releasing violent offenders who are no longer dangerous, even those who have been convicted of murder, said Weisberg, who is also the co-director of the Stanford Criminal Justice Center.

“The percentage of people who have committed non-violent drug offenses is not that many to be the solution for criminal justice reform,” said Weisberg.

Of the U.S. prison population, only 17 percent of inmates in 2010 were incarcerated for primary drug offenses, according to research by Fordham University Professor John Pfaff. He wrote in research published in 2015 that the focus should be on violent crime not primary drug offenders.

“The policy implications here are clear,” Pfaff wrote. “Reducing the admissions of drug offenders will not meaningfully reduce prison populations.”

This does not mean that addressing prison sentences for non-violent drug offenses isn’t important, but Pfaff said that those offenses should not be the only focus and they don’t make up the majority of people in prison.

People who have committed drug offenses make up more of the new admissions to prisons, but nearly half of inmates incarcerated are there for violent crimes, according to the Brookings Institute.

Basically, the research suggests that if we want to effectively reduce the 2.2 million people in the U.S. prison population, we have to consider releasing violent offenders.

But aren’t all violent offenders dangerous to the public?

Actually, there’s research that suggests a significant amount of them are not.

Weisberg said that violent offenders middle aged and older who committed a crime in their 20’s and 30’s tend to age out of their crime.

Elderly Prisoners

“The most interesting example of people who should be considered for release and unquestionably committed violent crimes, but are not dangerous anymore, are elderly people,” said Weisberg.

A 2011 report by the Stanford Criminal Justice Center, which followed 860 California murderers released since 1995, found that only five of the murderers were convicted of new felonies in the 15 years after release. None of them returned to prison for “life-term” crimes. That’s a 1 percent rate of return to prison for the murderers in this study compared to the nearly 50 percent return to California state prison for the broader prison population.

So why were these murderers so well-behaved after their release?

Age is mostly likely the reason. Not only are most violent crimes committed by people under 30, but even the criminal behavior that continues after that age declines drastically after age 40 and even more so after age 50, according to the report. The average age in the 2011 study for California inmates serving life in prison who were granted parole was 49.9 years old. This suggests that by the time these “lifers” made parole, they had “aged out” of the violent stage in their lives.

However living in the outside world after a prison sentence is not easy. After a recent increase in parolee releases under California Gov. Jerry Brown, and an uptick in returns to jail for some of those parolees, some wondered whether former inmates are prepared to be successful. “We’re talking about people with track records of the most serious and violent crime … and we’re saying, ‘Good luck out there, do well,'” Christine Ward, executive director of Crime Victims Action Alliance, told the Los Angeles Times.

Former inmates struggle to find jobs, have a higher likelihood of divorce, and their children have a higher rate of mental health problems and school drop out rates, according to the Obama administration.

Weisberg said the difficulty of navigating society with a criminal record could contribute to re-offenses.

“It’s plausible the longer you keep someone in prison, the longer you’re wrecking their chances for legal life on the outside,” he said.

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Filed Under: article, slideshow Tagged With: aging behind bars, aging in prison, aging population, aging prisoners, grandparents in prison, incarcerated elders, seniors

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