Pubdate: Sat, 12 Apr 2003
Source: Montgomery Advertiser (AL)
Copyright: 2003sThe Advertiser Co.
Contact:  http://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1088

EXPANDED PAROLE DOCKET GOOD STEP

The weekly special dockets instituted by the state Board of Pardons and 
Paroles are a useful step in working to ease the horrific overcrowding of 
Alabama's prisons.

The weekly special dockets instituted by the state Board of Pardons and 
Paroles are a useful step in working to ease the horrific overcrowding of 
Alabama's prisons. The kinds of cases the board is considering in these 
special dockets underscore again the needlessly high number of people 
incarcerated in the state for crimes that don't necessarily warrant 
incarceration.

The board got a $1 million emergency appropriation in February that allowed 
it to hire some additional parole officers to supervise persons paroled 
from the special dockets.

Inmates convicted of Class A felonies involving violence or of domestic 
violence or drug trafficking are not eligible for the special dockets, nor 
are inmates with disciplinary charges within the past six months.

That leaves primarily the nonviolent drug and property offenders, the very 
offenders for whom incarceration often is a costly and unproductive option 
for society to choose.

Many of these inmates could be released from prisons into the supervision 
of the board without posing any appreciable physical threat to the 
citizenry. At the special docket hearings held this week, for example, 31 
of the 34 inmates considered for parole were paroled.

The special dockets are an important short-term measure. Their greatest 
value, however, may well lie in the questions they raise about why some of 
these people were in prison instead of serving sentences in more productive 
and less costly ways.
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MAP posted-by: Beth