‘This system is broken’: State officials call for change to Alabama’s parole board

More than 3,700 prisoners came up for parole last year, the vast majority meeting state guidelines for release from a jampacked system. Yet Alabama denied almost all of them, releasing just 312. Now, some leaders across the state are looking for a way to change the small board that did all that denying.

“This system is broken,” said former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore, a Republican. “And needs to be examined by the legislature.”

Another former Chief Justice, Sue Bell Cobb, a Democrat, agreed.

“There’s an old phrase that sunshine is the best antiseptic,” she said. “The sunshine that AL.com has brought upon the decisions by the Alabama parole board chair exemplifies this old adage.”

Already, things appear to be changing. Numbers from January show a 19% parole rate, far higher than the 8% rate of 2023.

Numbers from February aren’t available yet, but AL.com attended 57 hearings in February and March and witnessed a 16% parole rate.

Meanwhile, state lawmakers this year introduced five bills focusing on the parole board, its members and how they make their decisions.

Rep. Chris England, D-Tuscaloosa, said there’s a “new motivation” in Montgomery to talk about Alabama’s unwillingness to let people out of overcrowded prisons and find solutions.

“The system was never designed to have a parole board that didn’t let anyone out,” said England.

What’s next?

Currently, inmates can’t attend their own parole hearings. Occasionally, lawyers will record a voice memo on their phones to play in front of the board. That’s not typical, though, and many inmates don’t have lawyers.

England introduced a bill that would change that, allowing inmates to appear virtually before the board. And he introduced three more bills.

The second would change who gets a say in the decisions. The bill aims to increase the number of parole board members from the current three to five, reducing the power of any single board member.

Last year, the board also ignored its own criteria on who should be let out, as 4 out of 5 inmates who came before the board met the board’s own guidelines for parole. England wants to change that too.

His third bill seeks to create something called the Criminal Justice Policy Development Council, which would develop a new risk assessment for those up for parole. The bill would require the parole board to use those guidelines, and explain any deviations. The bill would also set up a way inmates could appeal if they met the state guidelines but were denied anyway.

Alabama has also been reluctant to parole inmates with cancer, serious illness or failing health due to old age. The board rejected all 10 people over 80 who were up for parole in fiscal year 2023.

England’s fourth bill seeks to give “weighted consideration to the health of an inmate” when deciding parole. It calls for inmates 60 and above who are denied parole to be given a detailed plan on how to improve their chances for their next hearing. It has other provisions for inmates seeking medical parole and medical furlough.

“There’s evidence there is some recognition on both sides of the aisle that something is wrong,” said England, saying there could be bipartisan movement on paroles. “And recognizing that if they continue to operate as they are, we will never be able to build a big enough prison for or hire enough people to care for the population they’re creating.”

What’s different?

Already, things may be shifting. Three members sit on the state’s parole board. Their decisions are final.

One member almost always voted no in 2023. Last summer, the ACLU of Alabama attended parole hearings and recorded each member’s vote. According to data gathered by the ACLU over a 10-week period, the board heard 251 parole hearings in June and July of 2023. In those, chairperson Leigh Gwathney voted to grant parole in just six cases — or 2.4% of the time.

This year, that’s changed slightly. The bureau doesn’t electronically record which member voted yea or no per inmate, a spokesperson said, but in the hearings attended by AL.com this year, chairperson Leigh Gwathney voted yea in 6 out of 52 cases where the votes were read aloud.

That’s 11.5%.

The uptick appeared to begin in early 2024, as seen in the bureau’s January numbers.

Gwathney has not discussed her voting with AL.com nor commented on the reporting.

AL.com began reporting its series, Denied: Alabama’s Broken Parole System, in January.

Alabama struggles with prisons at 168% capacity, prisons so overcrowded the Justice Department is challenging them as unusually deadly and unconstitutionally cruel in a trial set to begin this fall.

In the series, AL.com explored decisions by the state not to create more space by releasing people who were eligible, the vast majority of whom met the state’s own criteria for release.

People denied parole include those on work release, like Christopher M. McClinton. Arrested years ago for marijuana, McClinton spends his days selling fast food and his nights sleeping at a work release center. But the board thought he shouldn’t be able to spend his nights at home with his mother and denied his parole last year.

They denied Kenneth McCroskey, who was sent back to prison on a technical violation because he missed a meeting with his parole officer. His parole officer didn’t think he should be sent back, but that didn’t matter to the board. And now he’s back indefinitely, serving a life sentence for a 1996 third-degree robbery.

There are people being denied for crimes across the spectrum; not getting out for drug crimes, crimes from the 80s and 90s where they got a sentence they wouldn’t get today under updated Alabama laws.

And yet, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall has said there is no one left to reform in Alabama prisons. His office often sends someone to oppose parole, and when they do, data shows that Gwathney votes with them.

When asked if the state’s top prosecutor still stood by that remark, or had anything else to add on the situation, a spokesperson responded via email:

“We do not have anything further to add,” said the spokesperson for the Attorney General, “as we disagree with the premise of every article you have written on the topic.”

What’s the effect?

Douglas Layton Jr. said the constant parole denials led to a loss of hope across the lock-ups. Layton was denied parole after years of a clean prison record, but got out under a separate court order.

That hopelessness can lead to more dangerous conditions in prison; conditions the feds are set to challenge in court this fall.

Sen. Linda Coleman-Madison, D-Birmingham, said the parole system isn’t helping rehabilitation efforts.

“Everyone deserves a second chance, but our laws don’t say that. The Pardons and Parole system in Alabama is not working but we refuse to change it, that’s not good business practice. If it does not work we should see what best practices do, and try something new.”

At the same time, according to a presentation given by Alabama Department of Corrections Commissioner John Hamm to state lawmakers, there are 17,549 inmates who cannot earn Correctional Incentive Time, or what’s better known as “good time.”

That’s nearly all of Alabama’s inmates. The latest available data from the department shows that, in December, there were 20,497 inmates in prisons across the state.

Coleman-Madison said the two combined to leave “little incentive in a dog-eat-dog environment.”

“Low level felons should be offered incentives to rehabilitate,” said Coleman-Madison via email.

A fifth bill, sponsored by Coleman-Madison, seeks to require the board to restore voting rights for certain people who meet the criteria.

Coleman-Madison said via email, “The name is ‘Pardons and Parole.’ They’ve not been doing much of either in more than a decade.”

“Certainly not everyone deserves to be released but many do. Because they have not done a good job, violence in our prisons have escalated. I do feel an oversight committee or a review board is needed. I realize victims and their families have rights but everyone should be given opportunity to repent and change.”

England said the bills appear to have momentum this year.

“All of these things, these stories, are shining a brand new light on how bad the situation is.”

This project was completed with the support of a grant from Columbia University’s Ira A. Lipman Center for Journalism and Civil and Human Rights in conjunction with Arnold Ventures.