Frequency of parole board "lifer" interviews. The corrections code requires the parole board to interview prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment at certain specified times, regardless of whether the prisoner is eligible for parole at that time or ever. Life imprisonment may be either "parolable" or "nonparolable." Currently only two kinds of crimes carry a nonparolable life sentence: murder in the first degree, or violation of the penal code's "bombs and explosives" chapter that results in someone's death. (Public Act 319 of 1998 struck down Michigan's notorious "650 drug lifer" law, thereby eliminating nonparolable life imprisonment for major drug offenses. And Public Acts 206, 208, and 209 of 1998 added, for the first time, nonparolable life imprisonment for penal code violations involving bombs or explosives that result in death.) All other life sentences are "for life or any term of years," and a prisoner so sentenced is eligible for parole after serving a specified minimum number of calendar years in prison (10 years for those sentenced before 1992, 15 years for those sentenced after 1992, and 17 1/2 or 20 years for those sentenced for major drug crimes).

Each prisoner sentenced to imprisonment for life, whether "parolable" or "nonparolable," however, must be interviewed by one member of the parole board after 10 years into their sentences and then every 5 years afterwards, regardless of whether or not the prisoner is eligible for parole at that time (or, in the case of nonparolable lifers, if ever).

The required timing and frequency of "lifer" interviews has been changed legislatively over the years. Before 1982, prisoners sentenced to parolable life were interviewed by the parole board at the beginning of their sentences and were told at that time when they would be eligible for parole under department guidelines.(The passage of Ballot Proposal B in 1978 added a section to the corrections code which forbade reduction of minimum sentences by "good time" for prisoners who had committed certain crimes and prohibited consideration of parole for prisoners serving life sentences for certain crimes.) Public Act 314 of 1982 amended the corrections code to require the parole board to interview "lifers" after they had served 4 years of their sentence, and then every 2 years afterwards. This was again changed in 1992, by Public Act 181 of 1992 (which revamped the parole board and the parole process), which required that all "lifers" sentenced before 1992 be interviewed after 10 (instead of 4) years into their sentences, with subsequent interviews required every 5 (instead of every 2) years thereafter.

FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:

According to the House Fiscal Agency, the bill could lead to cost savings for the state and local units of government, though savings generated under the bill also could be offset by increased costs of incarceration of offenders who otherwise might have been paroled following circuit court review of their cases.

The Department of Attorney General reports that three assistant attorneys general are assigned full-time to parole appeals, and that clerical support occupies most of the time of another two or three clerical positions. The total cost of attorney general staff working on prisoner appeals has been estimated to be about $330,000. Counties could experience savings to the extent that circuit court time and resources were not occupied by prisoner appeals of parole board denials of parole. The Department of Corrections also could experience some minimal savings through relieving parole board members of the requirement for five-year interviews of certain prisoners. (9-20-99)

ARGUMENTS:

For:

Many people believe that prisoners file too many frivolous lawsuits. At least with regard to prisoner appeals of parole denials, the small percentage of appeals sent back by the courts for parole board reconsideration would seem to indicate that most parole appeals are without merit. In the last few years, a number of legislative attempts have been made to curb the incidence of prisoner lawsuits, including requiring prisoners to pay the filing fees and costs for civil actions they initiate (Public Acts 554, 555, and 556 of 1998) and prohibiting the appointment of taxpayer-funded lawyers in certain prisoner appeals (Public Act 200 of 1999). The bill would plug another loophole that prisoners can use to file frivolous lawsuits, namely, prisoner appeals of parole denials. The ability to appeal parole denials under the corrections code was only given to prisoners in a 1982 amendment to the corrections code, and proponents of the bill argue that this statutory authority to appeal parole denials has been abused and has resulted in an enormous expansion in the volume of frivolous prisoner appeals of parole denials and, consequently, in an increased amount of taxpayer money needed to respond to such prisoner lawsuits - money, as the bill's proponents also point out, that could be better spent elsewhere.

That most prisoner appeals of parole board denials are frivolous can be seen from the fact that minuscule

number prisoner appeals of parole denials under the corrections code result in reversals of parole denials. As statistics from the Department of Corrections indicate (see BACKGROUND INFORMATION), this right to appeal under the code hasn't benefitted the vast majority of prisoners who have exercised this right. And yet this expanded ability to appeal parole denials has resulted in an enormous increase in the number of parole appeals and, consequently, an increased burden on the attorney general's office and the Department of Corrections to respond to this expanded volume of prisoner lawsuits. According to the House Fiscal Agency, the attorney general's office assigns three full time attorneys to work on nothing but prisoner appeals of parole denials, as well as occupying the time of another two or three clerical positions. According to House staff, in fact, about half of the attorney general's corrections division's cases consist of these prisoner appeals of parole denials. In addition to the money spent by the state attorney general's office on prisoner appeals, the state Department of Corrections also has to spend substantial amounts of time, energy, and resources in working with the attorney general's office to prepare documents to respond to these prisoner appeals. And, in the few instances when the courts do send cases back to the parole board for reconsideration, the parole board must incur additional expenses to reconsider these cases.

The bill should drastically cut down on the burgeoning number of prisoner appeals of parole denials by eliminating such appeals under the corrections code. However, the bill still would leave prisoners recourse to appeal under the Revised Judicature Act (RJA), although the RJA has a higher burden of proof under an "abuse of discretion" standard. That is, the bill would leave intact a prisoner's right to appeal a parole denial under the RJA, but in order for the appeal to be successful, the prisoner would have show competent, material and substantial evidence that the parole board's decision was not supported by the law. Consequently, the bill should cut down on the number of prisoner appeals, make it easier for the courts to dismiss cases that wouldn't meet this higher burden of proof under the RJA, and would make it easier and less expensive for the attorney general's office to respond to such appeals.

Response:

Despite the apparent view of some people that prisoner lawsuits, almost by definition, are "frivolous," in fact not all prisoner lawsuits are frivolous. If, moreover, the bill is intended to address the issue of truly frivolous prisoner lawsuits that burden the state (and, therefore, the taxpayers), it should be noted that the bill would eliminate all prisoner appeals of parole denials under the corrections code. That is, the bill would eliminate not just the "frivolous" appeals of parole denials but the meritorious ones as well. Frivolous prisoner lawsuits certainly do impose a burden on the court system, the defendant (that is, the Department of Corrections), and the attorney general's office. And frivolous prisoner lawsuits are just as undesirable as frivolous lawsuits filed by non-prisoners. However, the bill does not distinguish between frivolous prisoner appeals of parole denials and meritorious appeals, and it is the meritorious appeals which serve the public good by establishing a body of precedent interpreting the statutory constraints on the parole board's authority. And, opponents of the bill argue, as the courts have begun to understand both parole board procedures and the manner in which the parole board exercises its discretion, the number of successful prisoner appeals of parole denials has increased.

For example, prisoner appeals of parole decisions have exposed a number of procedural problems with the parole process that have resulted in pressure on that process to make parole decisions more fair and accurate. Also, for example, successful prisoner lawsuits reportedly have resulted in requiring the parole board to consider relevant information provided by the prisoner, such as private psychological reports; requiring that the parole board comply with the parole guideline statute; assessing the discriminatory impact on women prisoners of guidelines developed for male prisoners; and, in some cases, even the finding that decisions to deny parole were an abuse of the parole board's discretion because the factual record supported the prisoner's release on parole. By eliminating all prisoner appeals of parole denials under the corrections code, it would appear that the bill is not really aimed just at frivolous prisoner lawsuits but is, more generally, aimed at further restricting access to the courts of a politically unpopular population.

Moreover, while frivolous prisoner lawsuits do cost the state money (since the attorney general's office must defend the Department of Corrections against such lawsuits), there are mechanisms already in place to deal with such lawsuits. As figures provided by the Department of Corrections indicate (see BACKGROUND INFORMATION), very few of the prisoner appeals of parole denials are even sent back for reconsideration by the circuit court, with a tiny number actually resulting in any change in the parole board's original decision. So although the state may find it time consuming to respond to such prisoner lawsuits, clearly the courts have overwhelmingly been upholding parole board decisions. Nevertheless, in a few cases, the court's direction to the parole board to

reconsider its parole denials have resulted in the granting of parole (reportedly, a total of 8 cases in the past five years). While extremely small in number compared to the number of prisoner appeals (reportedly a total of 3,800 in the same period), nevertheless, to the eight prisoners involved, surely the ability to appeal and get a parole denial reversed is an extraordinarily important liberty interest, and one that should be protected rather than eliminated.

In addition, surely no one is suggesting that meritorious lawsuits - those which address serious abuses of power which result in injustice - should be discouraged simply because they are brought by prisoners, who, after all, still are citizens. That there are nonfrivolous lawsuits can be seen by looking at a sample of several parole appeal cases provided by the state lawyers association that deals with prisons and corrections. These cases certainly indicate that not all prisoner appeals of parole denials are frivolous, especially in those cases where it is the corrections system and not the prisoner who is at fault when necessary documentation is not made available to the parole board or when a prisoner fails to complete programs required for parole. For example, in one case the parole board denied a prisoner parole based on a parole eligibility report which the Department of Corrections admitted belonged to another prisoner (but which had had the incorrect prisoner's name put accidentally on the report's subject line). In another case, the parole board apparently denied parole to a prisoner based on the board's finding that the prisoner had not demonstrated adequate psychological progress, even though there was a Department of Corrections report showing that the prisoner had made such progress but the report somehow did not make it into the parole board's file on the prisoner. In yet another case, the Department of Corrections reportedly denied a prisoner sex offender therapy and wouldn't let the prisoner meet with a therapist hired by the prisoner's family, and then the prisoner was denied parole based on the prisoner's non-completion of sexual offender therapy. And in another case, apparently the Department of Corrections found that a prisoner should complete a GED as a prerequisite for parole, but refused to consider evidence showing that the prisoner had a 20-year history of learning disabilities. Surely such cases are not frivolous, do not involve the parole board's abuse of its discretion, and yet still should be allowed the right to appeal (which would not be the case should the bill be enacted).

While it is understandable that the state does not want to be sued, sometimes that is the only way to get the state to address abuses of its power. It should be understood that even if a lawsuit is brought against the state by a prison inmate, if the lawsuit is successful it is not just the prisoner but all of the citizens in the state whose rights are protected. After all, it is not the parole appeals that lose that are most important but rather those that win and create a body of precedent to guide decision making in future parole cases. So to deny prisoner appeals is to restrict not just the protection of prisoners' rights but of the rights of all state citizens.

Finally, as opponents of the bill point out, many prisoner appeals are thrown out because they are badly drafted, which is not the same as saying that the appeals are without intrinsic merit. In fact, most prisoners are at a disadvantage from the beginning in trying to litigate their concerns because half of them are functionally illiterate, most are indigent, and very few have access to competent legal advice. In addition, it appears that increasing numbers of mentally ill people are being put in prison because of inadequate provision of mental health services, which only contributes to the number of poorly conceived or drafted prisoner litigation. Because it is so difficult for prisoners to draft acceptable pleadings on their own, even with the minimal resources of prison law libraries, much of the prisoner litigation that appears to be "frivolous" may well raise substantive issues that get dismissed as "frivolous" because of technical drafting flaws. If prisoners had adequate legal counsel or were themselves legally trained, then many of these so-called "frivolous" complaints might well not exist in the first place because they would be competently drafted. Instead of decreasing prisoners' access to the courts, their access to both the courts -- and to adequate legal counsel -- should be increased.

Reply:

In the first place, prisoners have no constitutional right to parole, and it is a waste of the taxpayers' money for the attorney general to have to defend the Department of Corrections against routine prisoner challenges of parole board release denials. While the state constitution does provide the right to challenge administrative decisions, parole appeals weren't even allowed under the corrections code until 1982, when Public Act 314 amended the code to allow such appeals. Secondly, the bill would not eliminate all prisoner appeals of parole denials, just their right to do so under the corrections code. But even with the elimination of this right under the corrections code, prisoners still would be able to appeal parole board denials of parole under the Revised Judicature Act. The bill simply would return prisoner parole appeals back to their pre-1982 status, when prisoners appealed parole denials under the Revised Judicature Act.

For:

While eliminating prisoner appeals under the corrections code, the bill still would appropriately keep the current provisions in the code (added in 1992) that allow county prosecutors and crime victims to appeal parole board decisions to release prisoners on parole. It is in the best interests of society at large to continue to allow county prosecutors and crime victims to appeal parole board decisions to grant parole to prisoners, as they are most likely to know first hand the potentially terrible actions that the prisoners in question are capable of wreaking on innocent citizens. The state has a duty to protect the public health, safety, and welfare, and the bill would contribute to this goal by ensuring that prosecutors and crime victims could continue to be able to challenge the parole board's decision to release a prisoner to parole if the prosecutor or victim believed that the prisoner should not be released. The bill is a much-needed piece of an overall strategy to appropriately contain populations that have been proven in a court of law to be harmful to society.

Response:

The bill would eliminate prisoner appeals of parole denials while continuing to allow county prosecutors and crime victims to appeal decisions to grant paroles. This seems not only grossly unfair (after all, it is the prisoners' lives that are at stake, while often for prosecutors it is more a matter of political motivation) but also possibly an unconstitutional violation of the U.S. Constitution's equal protection clause.

Reply:

Allowing appeals by prosecutors and victims under the corrections code, but not appeals by prisoners, would not violate constitutional equal protection requirements, since the public interest in the safety of the community and of the crime victims far outweighs prisoners' hopes for early release into the community under parole. Allowing prosecutors and victims to appeal grants of parole under the corrections code, and not just under the Revised Judicature Act, furthers a legitimate state interest and so is not unconstitutional.

For:

The bill would appropriately give the parole board the necessary discretion and flexibility to decide whether and when, if ever, to interview prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment, while at the same time preserving the rights of such prisoners to an initial parole board interview after serving a certain minimum number of calendar years of their sentences. That is, the bill would not prohibit parole board interviews after the initial required interview, but would simply allow the parole board to exercise its best judgment about which prisoners should be interviewed thereafter - and when, if ever - which is the whole point of having a parole board in the first place. Moreover, by potentially reducing the number of parole board hearings, the bill would, to that extent, also further reduce the number of prisoner appeals that could be made of parole board decisions.

Moreover, as the chair of the parole board testified before the House committee, it has been a longstanding philosophy of the parole board that a life sentence means just that, namely, life in prison. While parole may be appropriate under certain circumstances for some lifers, the parole board believes that something exceptional must occur which would cause the board to request a sentencing judge or the governor to set aside a life sentence. That is, "good behavior" in prison is an expectation the board has of prisoners, and is not in and of itself grounds for parole. Also, according to the parole board chair's testimony, the parole board already currently makes decisions to parole or not to parole prisoners without an interview, so the bill would simply implement current parole board practice.

Response:

The testimony regarding the parole board's view that a life sentence means a life sentence simply indicates a failure to understand both the nature of indeterminate sentencing and the role of the judiciary in sentencing. Under indeterminate sentencing, the court sentences a prisoner to a range of years rather than a definite number of years, under the assumption that the minimum term of imprisonment defines the lower limit of the appropriate punishment for the offense committed by the prisoner. Consequently, the role of the parole board is not to deny parole because it believes that certain crimes deserve more than the minimum sentence decided by the court. Rather, the parole board's role is to assess the prisoner's eligibility for release on parole, once the prisoner has served the minimum sentence, based on the prisoner's conduct while imprisoned and on factors such as evidence that the prisoner has been rehabilitated and no longer would pose a danger to society (or, conversely, on the existence of certain factors that are positively correlated with the likelihood that releasing the prisoner would threaten public safety). The decline in the number of paroled prisoners since the reconstitution of the parole board in 1992, especially of sexually assaultive prisoners, constitutes a de facto policy of deciding not to parole a prisoner, even when he or she otherwise would be eligible for parole, based on an emotional reaction rather than a rational assessment of the prisoner's suitability for release into parole. The parole board should not deny parole simply on the basis of the board's feelings of revulsion over the crime committed by the prisoner, which past action the

prisoner obviously cannot change, but rather on those factors over which the prisoner can exercise meaningful control, such as his or her behavior once incarcerated. All prisoners eligible for parole should be given fair and meaningful parole consideration by an impartial and fully-informed parole board, and should not have this consideration derailed because such consideration may be politically unpopular.

Reply:

While, in the past, implementation of parole guidelines may have been weighted toward consideration of the prisoner's conduct while imprisoned, the current parole guidelines clearly do not favor this approach. In fact, the guidelines explicitly state that for prisoners serving short or medium term sentences, greater weight is to be placed on a prisoner's prior criminal history (including the nature of the crime for which the prisoner currently is incarcerated) than on "institutional variables." Many people feel that it is counterintuitive not to consider the horrendous nature of many crimes when considering whether or not a prisoner should be paroled. It also seems to many people that considering only a prisoner's prison conduct - where the prisoner's incentive to behave well while imprisoned in order to be released on parole may or may not have much predictive power with regard to the prisoner's behavior once he or she no longer was under prison supervision - is shortsighted, if not dangerous. A history of violent behavior - and in particular a history of particularly horrendous behavior - in most cases would seem to be a fairly reliable predictor of future behavior, particularly if there is no evidence of some kind of extraordinary personal transformation in the interim. The behavior of people who are a proven danger to society should be contained and restricted, and such people should not be released on technicalities to wreak further havoc on innocent victims. While not a perfect solution, the bill should, when taken in conjunction with other complementary legislation, make it more difficult for people who are proven to have been dangerous to society to be released before they serve their full sentences.

For:

The bill would make a number of changes in the parole board interview process that would save the parole board time (and the taxpayers money) by allowing an "expedited" interviewing process and by letting the parole board to decide when to interview "lifers" (or prisoners sentenced to a long but indeterminate number of years) after a required initial interview.

As the chair of the current parole board testified before the House committee, the parole board currently makes decision to parole (or to continue imprisonment of) prisoners without an interview, basing this decision on the prisoner's parole guideline scores. The proposed "expedited" interview process would allow the parole board to conserve its limited resources, while continuing to make good decisions by allowing it to review a prisoner's file in the office and, by that "file review," decide if the lifer needs to be interviewed.

The bill would eliminate the current wasteful statutory requirement that the parole board interview prisoners serving a sentence for any term of years less than life. Currently, even though many of these prisoners can't be paroled until the end of their mandatory minimum sentences (less any "good time" credit), the law still requires the parole board to interview them. The bill would require the parole board only to interview these prisoners as it saw fit, thereby saving taxpayer money currently spend on these premature interviews.

Response:

The bill's proposed elimination of the mandatory periodic interviewing of "lifers" by the parole board has the potential to reverse an important rollback of Michigan's draconian "drug lifer law" last session by Public Act 319 of 1998. Public Act 319 deleted the two-decades-old mandatory life sentence without the possibility of parole for manufacturing or delivering mixtures containing heroin or cocaine weighing 650 grams (about 1.4 pounds), and instead made such crimes subject to imprisonment "for life or any term of years but not less than 20 years." Thus, the so-called "650 drug lifers" would be eligible for parole after serving 20 calendar years in prison. However, by removing the current mandatory 5-year interview schedule for "lifers," the bill could undo what was achieved by Public Act 319 of 1998. Eliminating the requirement that the parole board interview people serving life terms (after the first ten years) may make the distinction between parolable and nonparolable life almost meaningless, since the new conservative parole board could operate on a de facto policy of deciding never to interview "drug lifers" and so never release any of them to parole. Without a mechanism to identify individuals who would be suitable candidates for parole, and without an affirmative obligation to provide a regular, comprehensive review of their records, those intended to benefit from Public Act 319 of 1998 could wind up being left in prison indefinitely, compounding the injustice that Public Act 319 was intended to correct.

For:

The bill would make clear the policy shift in the last 15 or 20 years from a conception of prisons as serving a rehabilitative function for incarcerated prisoners to a predominantly retributive conception of the purpose of

the corrections system. Criminals need to know that they will be punished for their crimes, so that that knowledge can act as a possible deterrent to crime.

Response:

Depending on one's point of view, shifting the conception of the purpose of the corrections system from that of primarily rehabilitation to that primarily of retribution can equally be seen as undesirable. Many crimes are impulse crimes, where the person committing does not think ahead to what might happen should he or she be caught. So the deterrent values of punitive measures certainly can be, and has been, the subject of considerable debate. Moreover, most incarcerated prisoners will eventually return to society and it is in society's prudential interest to rehabilitate prisoners before they return to the population at large.

Against:

Although the number of both prisoner and prosecutor appeals of parole board decisions have increased over the years since the 1992 parole board reforms, the Department of Corrections' own figures indicate that in the most recent period for which data is available (1998 to 1999), prisoner appeals dropped while prosecutor appeals increased. And yet the bill would eliminate prisoner appeals while continuing to allow prosecutor appeals of parole board decisions to grant paroles. Does this make sense? If the goal is to decrease the number of lawsuits against the state, then surely the increasing number of lawsuits by prosecutors also should be eliminated.

Response:

As the Department of Corrections figures indicate, the number of prosecutor appeals of grants of parole is less than 100, while prisoner appeals of parole denials number in the thousands. The cost of the small number of prosecutor appeals is hardly comparable to the cost to the state of the thousands of prisoner appeals. Moreover, the bill can be seen as part of a long-term effort on the part of the legislature to reduce frivolous prisoner lawsuits against the state, not all lawsuits.

Against:

Despite the claims by proponents of the bill that there are too many prisoner lawsuits, the number of prisoner parole appeals has increased for entirely understandable reasons. For, even as the prison prison population has continued to expand, the "new" parole board has decreased the number of paroles granted. Even if the number of prisoner appeals of parole denials remained proportionately the same with respect to the size of the prison population, as the prison population increases, one should expect the total number of prisoner appeals to increase as well. The question is, have the number of prisoner appeals increased disproportionately to the increase in the prison population?

In addition, however, the reorganization of the parole board in 1992 has brought with it a parole board that has increasingly denied parole to prisoners even when the prisoners have been incarcerated well beyond their earliest legally allowable parole release date. As a recent House and Senate Fiscal Agencies report notes, recent declines in parole approvals have contributed significantly to the burgeoning prison population. With paroles down, both as a percentage of total parole interviews, and as a percentage of the total prison population, it is hardly surprising that prisoner appeals of parole denials have been increasing. The question still remains whether all, or even a majority, of these appeals can fairly be categorized as "frivolous," and thus whether they should be eliminated from the corrections code.

Response:

The figures on prisoner parole denial appeals (see BACKGROUND INFORMATION) would appear to indicate that the courts, at least, have not found many prisoner appeals to be meritorious. For, of the 3,800 prisoner appeals filed between 1995 and 1999, the courts ordered reconsideration of only 162 cases (about 4 percent). And of the 162 cases sent back to the circuit court for reconsideration, only 24 resulted in parole because of the court-ordered reconsideration. In other words, less than 1 percent of all prisoner appeals of parole denials resulted in the parole board changing its mind and granting parole. This hardly seems to indicate any serious problems with the current parole process.

Against:

The bill would further weaken judicial discretion, and to that extent harm not only the judiciary and prisoners as a whole, but the balance of powers among the three branches of government, and thus all of society. As part of the Department of Corrections, the parole board is an executive agency (appointed by the governor, under the 1992 legislative amendments to the corrections code), and its decisions should be as much subject to judicial review as those of other executive agencies Reportedly, as the courts had become aware of the new parole board procedures and the way in which the parole board has been choosing to exercise its discretion, an increasing number of prisoner parole appeals apparently were being upheld by the courts. While the bill might be seen as a kind of politically popular move against a politically unpopular population (namely, incarcerated prisoners), justice, not political expediency, should govern the way the state addresses corrections problems. And denying prisoners the ability to appeal parole decisions hardly seems to be

the just course of action to take, either for individual prisoners or for society as a whole. However imperfect the judicial system may appear sometimes, one of the major strengths of judicial review is its ability to take issues on a case by case basis and determine in each case, based on the unique circumstances of each case, the most just and desirable course of action. The bill, by removing judicial discretion in yet another area, would, to that extent, lessen the ability of the judiciary to function as the co-equal, independent branch of government that it is.

Further, the bill would undermine an important specific area of judicial action - sentencing discretion - as well as the recently enacted legislative sentencing guidelines (and possibly even the process of plea bargaining, under which many offenders are convicted who otherwise might have to be released because of insufficient evidence to convict on more serious charges).

Response:

As proponents of the bill point out, the bill would merely remove prisoner appeals of parole denials from the corrections code. It would do nothing to prohibit such appeals under Section 631 of the Revised Judicature Act, which provides a general recourse to appeal of "any order, decision, or opinion of any state board, commission, or agency, authorized under the laws of this state to promulgate rules from which an appeal or other judicial review has not otherwise been provided for by law". Clearly parole board decisions fall under "state agency decisions," and are, therefore, subject to appeal under this section of the Revised Judicature Act.

Reply:

If, as proponents of the bill claim, it is true that prisoners could continue to appeal parole board decisions under the Revised Judicature Act, why not make that same argument with regard to prosecutors and crime victims? Presumably, allowing prosecutors and victims to continue to be able to appeal parole board decisions under the corrections code provisions while restricting prisoners to appeals under the Revised Judicature Act will somehow advantage prosecutors and crime victims in their right to appeal and disadvantage prisoners in their right to appeal, since part of the purpose of the bill is to reduce prisoner lawsuits. Even if this should turn out to be constitutional, is it fair?

Against:

One of the major reasons for the debates over parole over the past decade or so have to do not only with parole board "accountability," but with prison overcrowding and the enormous increase in the percentage of the state budget that has gone to the corrections budget. And as the corrections budget has burgeoned, adequate funding of other, preventive or socially more positive programs (such as education) has become less and less feasible. The costs of incarcerating prisoners who, except for politically popular but otherwise unsound reasons, should be paroled is enormously expensive in both financial terms and in terms of human resources lost and suffering incurred. The declining rate of paroles in the past few years has contributed to the need to construct ever more new and expensive prisons without any good evidence that this course of action appreciably increases public safety or welfare. If the point of trying to reduce the number of prisoner lawsuits is in order to save the state money, then surely the costs of prisoner lawsuits - in this case, of prisoner appeals of parole denials - surely is less than the costs of keeping prisoners incarcerated at an average of more than $25,000 per prisoner per year.

Response:

According to the 1997 Department of Corrections Report, the decline in parole releases is, at least in part, linked to the new parole board's policy of restricting or even eliminating parole for violent offenders, and in particular, of sex offenders. There has been a two percent increase in the admission and retention of such prisoners in the prison population, which means that the parole board is protecting the public safety even if this de facto parole denial policy means that more violent prisoners will be housed in prison at state taxpayers expense. (A 1997 Senate Fiscal Agency paper indicates that in 1991, about 36 percent of prison admissions were for assaultive crimes and 58 percent of the prison population consisted of assaultive offenders; by 1996, these percentages were 38 and 60 percent respectively. Surely protecting the public safety is worth the money it costs to keep as many violent offenders in prison for as long as possible.)

Reply:

The decline in parole approvals has been more than five times greater than the increase in the proportion of assaultive offenders in the prison population (according to one estimate, grants of parole have increased by 11 percent, while the increase in assaultive prisoners has been only 2 percent). No figures have been presented that indicate that parole denials have increased solely -- if at all -- due to the two percent increase in assaultive prisoners in the prison population between 1991 and 1996.

Analyst: S. Ekstrom