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by ACLU of WV
ACLU of West Virginia has taken, and will continue to take, a keen interest in the ongoing debate as to: - What is causing West Virginia's current prison overcrowding problems, and
- What policy recommendations and adjustments should be made to truly address this issue?
At yesterday's legislative interim meetings here in Charleston, I had the opportunity to see the curtain pulled back on a couple of deficiencies in current criminal justice policy that need to be corrected. The Gazette's Phil Kabler offers coverage of yesterday's meeting of Judiciary Subcommittee C where two things were made abundantly clear. First, West Virginia provides little in the way of mechanisms to assess risk factors for offenders. This is to say that there is no established system to evaluate persons behind bars who may be candidates for early release and conversely, those offenders who definitely should not be put back out into society. Such a system, if appropriately implemented could begin to alleviate the state's overcrowding problem by identifying offenders who pose a lesser threat of recidivism and getting them out of prison on a more realistic time line than may otherwise be dictated by their potentially overblown sentencing requirements. Because West Virginia most likely has a great many non-violent offenders behind bars who either should not be there or who have served enough time, a risk evaluation system, once implemented, would inevitably begin to ease the overcrowding situation. Said system would also benefit society by conclusively identifying offenders who are far too dangerous to be let out of jail. Secondly, and far more concerning was the issue of offenders who are eligible for parole but are still locked up due to lack of post incarceration infrastructure. This is serious business. The speaker present said he knew of 31 offenders in the system who had already been paroled but were still locked up due to lack of post incarceration options (i.e. things like half-way houses and community corrections programs.) However, he admitted that the number statewide was at least 100 and could be even more. Even more concerning is a change in the Parole Board's policy that denies a parole hearing for any inmate who does not have a home plan in place upon release. Given that West Virginia's post incarceration infrastructure is inadequate, many prisoners are not able to make certain post incarceration plans. This lack of "what to do with you once you are out" type resources is a question that needs to be addressed by the legislature and hopefully, resources will be dedicated to this problem. However, the current situation demands scrutiny because prisoners who are otherwise eligible for a parole hearing are being flatly denied because of the state's shortcomings in the area of post incarceration infrastructure. Two serious questions that need to be answered: How many prisoners in West Virginia have been made eligible for parole but are still locked up? How many prisoners in West Virginia have been denied a parole hearing due to the Parole Board's new policy which denies hearings to anyone who doesn't have a certain post incarceration home plan? |
