Unsupervised convicts
Hundreds of convicts slipped through the cracks in Pennsylvania as the state Board of Probation and Parole failed to track them. A highly critical audit of the parole system was released this week by the Auditor General’s Office. In the two years covered by the audit (July 1, 1999 to June 30, 2001) nearly 1,600 convicts released from prison to serve the remainder of their sentences in the community went unsupervised. The audit claims the parole board failed to follow its own standards and lost track of 6.5 percent of the 24,000 people on parole.
Now that this information has been brought out, changes must be made to assure the law-abiding public that every effort is being made to keep tabs on the whereabouts and activities of parolees. Some changes are already in the works, according to acting chairman Benjamin A. Martinez, a Gov. Rendell appointee. This is a good sign. It is difficult to hold a new administration culpable for the methods used by a former administration, yet there are holdovers on the board which rebutted the charges spelled out by Auditor General Bob Casey. The board claimed that losing track of 6.5 percent of parolees isn’t so bad when compared with other states. If this is meant to calm an unease of unsupervised convicts it misses the mark, especially when some of these men and women tend toward violence.
In one of the cases, Casey found a convict was permitted, despite board misgivings, to leave a community correction center and move into the community without a job or financial support. Within two weeks of his release, he shot a man in the face – and remained in the community virtually unsupervised until his arrest eight months later. Not all of the 1,600 lost inmates ran into trouble, nor were they of such a violent nature, but they were on parole for a reason. As with any agency charged with keeping tabs on people the usual sources of breakdown were cited: large caseloads, inefficient workers, poor supervision and inadequate technology. There was no glaring deficiency that can be pointed out and corrected immediately. So the task falls on the board to provide case workers with better tools and training to do the work. This takes an investment, and with the state facing financial hard times, there will be a tendency to dismiss any corrective actions that take money. This shouldn’t be the case here. The audit also found the parole board failed miserably at making sure parolees made restitution and court-ordered payments, that can include supervision fees. The audit claims the parole board collected a measly 8 percent of what was owed – a difference between $1 million and $15 million.
The money should be there, and the board is responsible to collect it and use it to supervise parolees. To do less is detrimental to society.