November
28, 2007 - Truthout.org
(US)
Set in Steel: Prison Life Without Parole
By Maya Schenwar, for Truthout
For
federal prisoners, the prospect of early release expired in 1987.
As prisons bulge and recidivism persists, why is the parole ban
still in place?
In 1982, when George
Martorano pled guilty to charges of marijuana possession
and drug conspiracy, he was expecting ten years in prison, at
most.
Today, after 24 years, Martorano holds
the honor of longest-serving nonviolent first-time offender in
the history of the United States. He's all too ready to forfeit
that mark of distinction, but if his sentence plays out as issued,
he'll be looking at several decades more: Martorano is serving
a life sentence for three years of transporting and selling marijuana.
Despite his spotless prison record -- not to mention his suicide-prevention
volunteer work, his yoga practice and the 20 books he's written
while incarcerated -- he has no hope of being released.
Martorano
is just one of almost 200,000 inmates in federal prison, many
of whom have no chance for early release, thanks to the Sentencing
Reform Act of 1984, which abolished parole at the federal
level. The toughening of prison legislation over the past 20
years has also meant longer sentences for nonviolent offenders,
combining with the parole ban to prompt a sharp increase in the
federal prison population. As it stands, the beefed-up federal
prison system costs taxpayers $40,000 per year for every inmate,
and it costs inmates whole decades of their lives.
"We're being warehoused," Martorano
said in a phone interview. "It's taken a million dollars
just to keep me in."
Since the parole ban took effect, the federal
prison population has more than quadrupled, according to Bureau
of Justice statistics.
In the past few years, the sentencing system
has been slowly changing in other ways. For example, the US Sentencing
Commission recently shortened its recommended sentences for crack
cocaine offenses, and Congress has shown signs that it will consider
bills addressing the disparity between penalties for crack and
powder cocaine. The Supreme Court is deliberating whether judges
should be able to grant sentences that dip below established
guidelines for sentence lengths.
However, Congress has taken no steps toward
reversing course on federal parole. Although a bill to revive
parole for federal prisoners has been introduced repeatedly in
the House over the past few years, it has never made it to the
floor for a vote. And an official at the US Sentencing Commission, who asked not to
be identified, said he was not aware of any impetus that would
bring back parole anytime soon.
As the prison population continues to explode,
many influential voices in Congress and the public sphere are
still touting a hardline philosophy when it comes to criminal
justice, according to Representative Danny Davis (D-Illinois),
who has sponsored the federal parole reinstatement bill for the
last two Congresses.
"People don't want to be characterized
as being 'soft on crime,'" Davis said in an interview. "They
are still afraid that characterization will follow them. You
would think that a country that is supposed to be as progressive
as ours would've recognized that this approach is not working."
Toward Sentencing "Truth"
In the 1980s, when the movement to abolish
parole swept across state sentencing systems and reached the
federal government, "tough on crime" was the mantra
of the day. The federal parole ban, part of a broad Sentencing
Reform Act, which also lengthened and standardized prison
sentences, passed in 1984 and was enacted in 1987. It represented
one step in a movement toward "truth in sentencing":
Abolishing parole was intended to ensure that judges -- and the
families of victims -- would know how much time defendants would
actually be serving.
"Truth in sentencing" eliminated
the authority of a third party, the Parole Board, which could
substantially alter a sentence after the judge was out of the
picture. A paroled prisoner might serve as little as one-sixth
of his or her sentence. After the ban, a prisoner could only
earn "good time," a subtraction of no more than 54
days a year.
At the time it passed, the parole ban seemed
something of a panacea: It fulfilled the goals of not only the
"tough on crime" crowd, but also of a group of Democrats
pushing for "fairness in sentencing." They hoped the
abolition of parole, along with clarified guidelines for sentence
lengths, would help to overcome the justice system's glaring
racial disparities in sentences.
The act passed, garnering little attention.
No public hearings were held before it was debated.
Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, who
served on the US Sentencing Commission prior to his court appointment
and, before that, participated in the shaping of the 1984 law,
described the act as promoting "greater honesty in sentencing."
"Under previous law the Parole Commission
determined (within broad limits) how much time an offender would
actually serve," Breyer said in a speech at the University
of Nebraska College of Law in 1998, of the thought process that
went into the crafting of the legislation. "A judge might
sentence an offender to 12 years, but the Parole Commission might
release the offender after four. No one -- not offender, judge
or public -- could say in advance what a 12-year sentence really
meant."
Without parole, Breyer explained, he and
the other crafters had hoped the sentencing system would be "transparent,
more candid, than before."
However, when the new guidelines were enforced,
some began to question whether the power to discriminate was
simply being shifted from the Parole Commission to the prosecutors,
according to Nora Callahan, executive director of the November
Coalition, a nonprofit organization working for drug sentencing
reform.
The prisoners getting the longest sentences,
Callahan said, were not necessarily the ones who had committed
the most egregious crimes. They were often the ones who didn't
know much about judicial system, since they had less money, less
education and less access to legal aid.
Take Danielle
Metz, a nonviolent first offender and mother of two, who
was sentenced to three life sentences plus 20 years for helping
her husband distribute cocaine. She pled innocent despite evidence
of her guilt. Later, she discovered her public defender was primarily
a traffic lawyer.
"When you lack knowledge of the law,
they can do whatever they want to you," Metz said in a phone
interview. "No one explained to me what was going on until
it was too late."
Soon, thousands of cases like Metz's were
cropping up: nonviolent first offenders sentenced to life in
prison, without a hope of early release.
Another such prisoner, David
Correa, who was incarcerated 18 years ago for transporting
495 grams of powder cocaine, pointed to the way the strict-guideline
sentencing system can still trip up defendants in court, depending
on which aspects of their crimes are highlighted and which legal
moves they choose.
"Because I really had nothing to offer
the prosecutor, because I took my case to trial, because in order
for me to take a plea deal I had to say I was guilty of gun charges
that I never had, and because I had to give names that I didn't
have either, I am now doing a life sentence," Correa wrote
in a letter to me.
Parole
Forgotten
Once the parole ban was in place, though,
it did not budge. Most people -- outside of prisoners and their
families -- had no idea it had happened, noted parole activist
John Flahive, who was first clued in when he accidentally received
a wrong-number call from a prisoner: George Martorano.
The two began chatting on a regular basis,
and Flahive began to lobby in Washington to bring back parole.
"As I got more involved, I found out
there were thousands like Georgie," Flahive said, noting
that about 60 percent of federal inmates are currently incarcerated
for nonviolent crimes.
In 2002, the first bill to revive parole,
introduced by Rep. Patsy Mink, made its way to the House -- and
died in committee when Mink died of chicken pox and pneumonia.
Since then, Davis has proposed the bill twice. Both times, it
died in the Judiciary Committee, then headed by Rep. James Sensenbrenner,
who has consistently voted to toughen sentences, maintain the
death penalty and reduce opportunities for appeals.
With a Democratic majority now in Congress,
parole advocates hope for a victory sometime soon. However, a
restoration of parole in the near future would be surprising,
according to Mark Bransky of the Federal Parole Board, which
remains in operation for prisoners sentenced prior to 1987, some
of whom are still eligible for parole.
"Things tend to go in cycles, so I'm
not sure," Bransky said. "But for now, there doesn't
seem to be much unhappiness in Congress with the new system."
Jeralyn Merritt, a Denver criminal defense
attorney and drug law analyst, concurred, adding that lobbying
for an increase in "good time" might be the only route
for earlier release.
"Federal parole won't be instated
as long as we have these guidelines," Merritt said. "They're
not looking at changing these guidelines."
However, unlike in the Reagan era, the
parole ban is not riding on the wave of "tough on crime"
fever. Public sentiment has softened to a certain extent, and,
according to Callahan, most of the liberal advocates of parole
abolition have long since changed their stance.
In a 2003 Dan Jones survey in Utah, widely
held to be the most conservative state in the nation, almost
two-thirds of respondents favored the return of parole -- once
they were informed it had been banned.
"It's something a lot of people don't
think about until it personally touches them," Davis said.
Parole may not be a highly contentious
issue; it's just an invisible one.
No More Carrots
Despite lawmakers' original rationale of
the parole ban as a "tough on crime" measure, it has
hit the lives of nonviolent offenders much harder than it has
hit crime, according to Callahan. Although prisoners now do more
time, she said, without a tangible motivation to "do good,"
they may actually be less likely to change their ways.
"In 1987, all the incentives for corrections
to work in a rehabilitative way were taken away," Callahan
said. "This affects violent crime, because so many people
are getting out with nothing but bitterness."
According to FBI statistics, violent crime
increased steadily in the five years after the parole ban was
established.
Callahan also links prisoners' decreased
motivation to rehabilitate to recidivism.
One element of the logic behind the parole
ban was "many prisoners released on parole were committing
new crimes," Bransky said.
Yet ex-prisoners were significantly more
likely to be rearrested in 1994 than in 1983, according to the
Federal Bureau of Justice Statistics.
Since 1987, the atmosphere within prison
walls has changed, too, according to Martorano, who has witnessed
life in multiple federal prisons firsthand since the parole ban
kicked in.
"The institutions were much less violent
[before 1987], because there was a light," he said. "If
you've got ten life sentences, with no chance of parole, there's
no carrot."
Lack of parole also makes life tougher
for prison guards, according to Alan J. Williams, a former prisoner
who is now chair of the Delaware branch of the advocacy organization,
Citizens United for Rehabilitation of Errants, Federal Prison
Chapter (FedCURE).
Without the incentive of getting out on good behavior, there's
no substantive reason to treat guards well. Additionally, no
chance of early release breeds anger toward the prison system,
which often takes the form of violence, according to Williams.
Williams also pointed to the frustration-provoking
divide between prisoners sentenced prior to 1987, many of whom
still eligible for parole, and prisoners sentenced after the
ban kicked in -- a rift that triggers fights among inmates.
"We've been going about this the wrong
way, emphasizing incarceration rather than rehabilitation,"
Davis said. "We're not reducing crime or recidivism. Since
that's not the case, why do we continue to follow a flawed policy?"
Parole and Electoral Reality
Although some '80s-style tough-on-crime
Congress members remain, the persistence of the parole ban may
have less to do with hard-line philosophy and more to do with
political priorities, according to Callahan. Between federal
prisoners, ex-federal prisoners and their families and friends,
millions of Americans are seriously impacted by federal prison
policy. However, those millions are, by in large, not policymakers.
"The 'war on crime' is just as insidious
as the war in Iraq," Callahan said. "But a war like
this is different from an Iraq War. The middle class doesn't
see this war."
Not many prisoner advocates were surprised
the last two bills to revive federal parole never made it out
of committee. Sensenbrenner chaired the Judiciary Committee,
which was also stocked with such stalwarts as Randy Forbes, who
led the successful movement to abolish parole in his home state
of Virginia in the 1990s. Both still hold places on the committee,
with Forbes as its ranking member.
When a Democratic majority won Congress
last year, the shift did not prompt a face-off with tough-on-crime
Republicans.
The issue doesn't always break down in
line with the party divide, according to policy analyst Ryan
King of the Sentencing
Project. Just as the original Sentencing Reform Act
was a bipartisan venture, the maintenance of the sentencing status
quo requires the consent -- at least implicitly -- of members
of both parties.
Lawmakers have to pick their battles, and
picking parole is not a politically savvy move.
"I've never seen anyone lose an election
for being tough on crime," King said. "You might see
a candidate say they would overturn every parole board decision
in the state. But I doubt a candidate would set sentencing reform
as the centerpiece of a campaign. No candidate wants the public
to think they would let individuals off easy."
Shying away from sentencing and parole
reform basically boils down to fear, on the part of both the
public and politicians, according to King. People are afraid
of early-released prisoners wreaking havoc on their communities.
Lawmakers are afraid that, should they push for reform, a high-profile
case of a parolee committing a crime could sabotage their campaigns.
The fear is grounded in precedent: 1998
Democratic presidential candidate and Massachusetts Governor
Michael Dukakis supported his state's "furlough" program,
which allowed inmates temporary leaves of absence from prison
as part of a rehabilitation plan. When Massachusetts prisoner
Willie Horton committed armed robbery and rape while on furlough,
the incident became a major issue in the 1988 election and a
basis for attack ads against Dukakis.
In Connecticut last July, two parolees
committed a triple murder and arson. In September, Connecticut's
attorney general ruled that parole-ineligible sentences could
not be commuted to parole-eligible, and a Quinnipiac University
poll in early November showed 72 percent of Connecticut voters
thought the parole system let prisoners out too soon.
"It's a cost-benefit analysis,"
King said. "There's not a lot of benefit for those politicians
to step out and support parole, but the costs could be enormous."
As with many prison issues, convincing
lawmakers to take a stand on parole is an especially tough sell
because many of the people to whom parole is most important --
prisoners and felons -- can't vote.
Money Motives
Many Americans who can vote benefit from
prisoners staying behind bars with no chance of early release,
noted both Martorano and Metz.
Though keeping millions of people in prison
is a drain on taxpayer dollars, inmates bolster the economy by
working for less than $1 an hour for companies like Microsoft
and AT&T. ("Most of the time when people call directory
assistance, they don't realize they're speaking with an inmate,"
Metz said.)
Noah Robinson, the half-brother of Congressman
Jesse Jackson and a federal prisoner serving a life sentence
in Terre Haute, Indiana, points out as private prisons expand,
a growing sector of the small-town vote will have the preservation
of the paroleban at heart. The local economies of "prison
towns" benefit from the lack of parole, since a guaranteed
(and increasing) number of prisoners means a constant source
of jobs for guards, administrators, food service workers, cleaning
people and suppliers of everything from toilet paper to office
supplies.
"With prisoners confined forever (i.e.
no parole), job security [is] totally unaffected by inflation
and recession; contracts for local businesses are ongoing,"
Robinson wrote to me.
Even more directly, some of the lawmakers
who could most influence the prospect of the parole bill -- Judiciary
Committee members -- take campaign money from corporations that
build and maintain private prisons.
The two largest private prison companies,
Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and Wackenhut Corporation
(now the GEO Group), entered the business in the mid-80s, when,
due to tougher drug laws and the loss of parole, government-run
prisons were bursting at the seams. The corporations' expansion
paralleled the continued Congressional reinforcement of hard-line
prison policies.
According to the Center for Responsive Politics, in the 2006
election cycle, the CCA contributed thousands of dollars to the
campaigns of six House Judiciary Committee members, including
Sensenbrenner, who kept the parole bill off the floor every time
it was proposed. He now sits on the Homeland Security subcommittee,
which deals most closely with sentencing and parole.
Sensenbrenner's office did not return repeated
calls for comment.
The CCA also funded the campaign of ranking
member Lamar Smith, who, in this Congress alone, has introduced
two bills which would increase prison terms.
In the Senate, the CCA financed the campaigns
of four out of the nine Republicans on the Judiciary Committee.
Wackenhut, on the other hand, developed
a reputation for giving to both the Democratic National Committee
and the Republican National Committee. Its new incarnation, the
GEO Group, also contributes to both parties. In fact, for the
2008 election, GEO has so far contributed more to the campaigns
of Democratic legislators than to Republicans, and has donated
to the campaigns of both Hillary Clinton and Bill Richardson.
Even Democratic Congressman Bill Nelson
of Florida, to whom both John Flahive and David Correa's mother
have appealed for help in reviving parole, took $10,000 from
GEO in 2006, according to data from Capitol Advantage.
"Financial drive is such a huge factor
for both sides of political aisle," said King, who noted
economic pressure from prison employees' unions plays a large
role in pulling Democrats away from parole and sentencing reform.
The American Federation of Government Employees,
to which federal prison workers belong, gives almost exclusively
to Democratic candidates.
Nevertheless, according to King, prisons
are at a breaking point. Contractors and government funding aren't
keeping up with the demand for new prison facilities, and overcrowding
is rampant. For policymakers, King said, dwindling resources
and their effect on profit -- not a realization of the system's
injustices and ineffectiveness -- will likely be the turning
point for parole and sentencing reform.
Though King does not foresee a vote to
reinstate parole right away, he argues measures like Davis's
parole bill are still necessary to put the idea "on the
radar screen," triggering momentum toward sentencing policy
change. As resources become scarcer, he reasons, more lawmakers
may get behind such legislation.
As for Davis, he has been cooperating with
FedCURE and other organizations on a new bill to revive parole.
He hasn't yet introduced it, he said, because he did not want
people to confuse it with his less controversial Second Chance
Act, a bipartisan-supported bill that just passed the House,
which provides resources for prisoners reentering society.
The passage of the Second Chance Act
may begin to pave the slow road to a criminal justice system
that emphasizes rehabilitation over punishment, according to
Davis. He hopes someday parole will follow.
Until then, for prisoners like Metz, it's
becoming increasingly difficult to fight off despair.
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