Report - Even Low-risk Inmates Unlikely to Be Paroled in Alabama
Alabama has granted parole to less than 8 percent of eligible prisoners
The ACLU of Alabama said its observance of 267 parole hearings this summer showed that the low rate of paroles granted in Alabama cannot be fully explained by concern for public safety. A report released by the ACLU of Alabama states that the Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles rarely granted parole even for inmates placed on work release by the Alabama Department of Corrections. Work release inmates should be good candidates for parole if the ADOC has classified them as safely able to work in the community, the report said.
The ACLU’s team observed 74 hearings for work release inmates, and 64 of those, 86%, were denied. Overall, the board denied parole for inmates at 248 of the 267 hearings the ACLU team watched, or 93%. Those numbers follow a downward trend in paroles that started in 2019. The parole grant rate hit a new low last fiscal year, at 10%. In contrast, about half of paroles were granted from 2016 through 2018.
“The Parole Board’s decisions aren’t motivated by concerns for public safety,” Alison Mollman, Interim Legal Director at the ACLU of Alabama, said in a press release about the report. “Their decisions are retributive, racially disparate, and prevent people who could safely and responsibly reenter society from returning to their families. It is time for the Parole Board to follow the law and their own guidelines. It is time for incarcerated Alabamians to come home.”
The ACLU of Alabama has criticized the parole board’s declining parole rate, saying it contributes to problems in Alabama’s overcrowded, understaffed prisons. The U.S. Department of Justice has sued the state and the Alabama Department of Corrections after an investigation showed excessive force by correctional officers and “serious risk of death, physical violence, and sexual abuse at the hands of other prisoners.” There were roughly 19,800 people in the state’s men’s prisons at the end of September yet the facilities are designed to hold just around 11,700.
The researchers discovered another troubling finding. Since Alabama Governor Kay Ivey (R) took over appointments to the parole board, Black people were far less likely to be granted parole than white applicants. In 2019, Black and white prisoners were granted parole at similar rates, with 34 percent of Black people granted parole compared to 36 percent of white applicants. But that disparity grew by 2020, with 16 percent of Black applicants receiving parole compared to 29 percent of white people.
You can read "Parole Watch Report" from the
ACLU of Alabama.
