Once
again, the Commissioner of the New York State Department of Corrections
is trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the New York State public
with regard to the propoised merger between DOCs and NY State Divsion
of Parole. While the term "consolidation” of departments sounds good on
paper and is the current "flavor of the month," there are some deep
rooted problems with the proposed DOCS and Parole merger.
DOCS
controls the number of inmates being let out and Parole controls the amount of inmates that return. Giving one person the absolute ability
to oversee and influence the entire corrections population (58,000
incarcerated inmates and 44,000 parolees combined) is extremely
dangerous because the human element of deception is involved. One man
will now be able to artificially keep the inmate population at any
number he desires. How is this controlled? Very simply, through the tool of technical violations.
While
no one was paying attention, the Division of Parole quietly took away
the key component of a safely run parole system, technical violations.
The role of the senior parole officer was greatly diminished as was the
ability to issue technical parole warrants. The senior parole officer
is not part of management and could not be controlled as easily as
someone in management confidential. So the role of issuing technical
violations was elevated to an administrative level. Why?
Keep
in mind that the Parole Board only has discretion for about 10 to 15%
of releases, the rest are state sentencing mandates and inmates who
serve their full term. New York State currently has approximately
44,000 parolees on average and about 7,500 violators each year;
considering that a parolee cost the state between 3k and 5k per year as
opposed to 40k for incarceration. The real control is not so much the Parole Board itself, but the agency policies that determine violators,
which means the Commissioner of Corrections decides if the inmates stay
in the streets or return to prison. If the commissioner is determined
to lower the inmate population at any cost, which do you think he will
decide?
Once
on parole, the control is not with the board but the parole officer and
the administrators. Any administrator can simply tighten the knot so to
speak, consequently more violators and more parolees returned to
prison. They can also relax the knot, be more lenient on the technical
violations like minor drug use, curfews, not listening to directives
etc., therefore less returned to prison. This is why everyday you read
about so many parolees committing new crimes and so many innocent law
abiding citizens unknowingly forced to interact with dangerous felons
who should be in prison.
The
merger of DOCS and Parole seems obvious on the surface, but as you can
see the motivating factor is money, not safety. To give one man all
that control is simply dangerous and reckless. In their eagerness and
zeal to flood our neighborhoods with parolees and then not violate them
when they break the terms of parole, they have forgotten the true
intention of public safety.
I’m
all for saving money but you and I both know that when it comes to
public safety, money cannot and should not be the key motivator.
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Vinny Blasio is a NYS Corrections Officer.
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