Maine Parole Commission Recommends Restoring Parole for State Prison Inmates
PORTLAND, Maine (WMTW) - A special commission that studied parole is recommending the Maine State Legislature and Governor Janet Mills renew parole, after a 47-year absence in the state, so more Maine inmates can leave prison before their sentences are complete.
Seven of the twelve members of the Commission To Examine Reestablishing Parole voted to restore parole, while two dissented, and three abstained, upon release of the commission’s report, which followed months of research and hearings.
Maine banned parole in 1976, when the state became the first in the nation to outlaw it, and 15 other states have followed suit.
Mills and the legislature established the commission last year to reconsider that policy.
Arthur C. Jones, of Belfast, a commissioner who spent 35 years on parole boards – 28 years in New Jersey and 7 in Rhode Island -- said in an interview via Zoom, he thinks inmates should be eligible for parole after serving one-third of their sentence, if they have a clean record behind bars, have expressed remorse, have undergone rehabilitation, and have a plan for when they get out.
“I think every inmate who’s incarcerated should be eligible for parole,” Jones said, except for inmates sentenced by a judge to life without the possibility of parole. “Everyone deserves a second chance, and in that second chance, they need to know what they need to do in order to qualify for a second chance. You don’t just get a second chance because you lived through a certain period of time.”
The commission was chaired by Sen. Craig Hickman and former Rep. Charlotte Warren, both Democrats. Neither was available for comment on Tuesday.
The report identified parole as promising hope to people serving long prison sentences.
“People need hope, and when you don’t have hope, you give up,” Jones said. “If you set goals for people, you know, and give them a clear path to earn their way, I think, that’s the way we should go.”
The two dissenting commission members, Maine Department of Corrections Commissioner Randy Liberty and Sen. Scott Cyrway, a Republican, pointed to Maine’s Supervised Community Confinement Program (SCCP), which lets approved inmates serve the last three years outside of prison.
Currently, 66 of the state’s 1,712 inmates are in the program, according to information MDOC provided the commission.
“I feel parole is incorporated in the system we have now,” Cyrway said, referring to SCCP, in his findings published in the report.
Cyrway also noted in a phone interview late Tuesday that Maine’s “good time” formula shaves 5 days off every month of a sentence, or two months off every year for good behavior, a possible 16% reduction in one’s sentence, so, for example, a 20-year sentence could be reduced to 17-years.
“There’s a lot of things that have to be considered,” Cyrway said, including how crime victims are traumatized by parole hearings.
Liberty, in his findings, said SCCP offers “checks and balances to ensure both public safety and resident success.”
But he added that he had talked with the governor about possibly expanding eligibility for people with longer sentences.
Liberty, who did not respond to an interview request, said in his findings in the report, “The MDOC believes that expanding the SCCP gets to the crux of the desire among the commission, that people who’ve shown success at rehabilitating have an opportunity to return to the community sooner, and it does so without creating a new system, new agency, new staff, new budgets.”
MDOC told the commission it spends, on average, approximately $78,000 a year on each inmate across a half dozen adult facilities and one juvenile detention facility.
1,176 inmates had 10 years or less until their release date, factroing in good time reductions, while 458 inmates had more than 10 years, including 57 inmates with life sentences, accoding to MDOC data.
Cyrway said Tuesday he agreed to co-sponsor a bill with Hickman to codify the commission recommendation to amend existing mechanisms in Maine law to open pathways for early release of incarcerated persons who no longer pose a threat to public safety.
Another Republican commissioner, former Rep. Bruce Bickford, said in a telephone interview on Tuesday he had voted for restoring parole, because he had heard “so many heart-wrenching stories” of families broken apart by prison.
An Independent commissioner, former Rep. Jeff Evangelos, the original sponsor of a bill to restore parole, now term limited, said in a telephone interview, “I am definitely happy with the direction we’re heading in.”
Evangelos also advocates weekend furloughs for qualified inmates.
He said, “They allow an incarcerated person to remain in contact with their children and their spouse.”
A new bill sponsored Sen. Pinny Beebe-Center, chair of the legislature’s Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee, proposes making Maine inmates eligible for parole after serving one-third of their sentence.
Jones said, “Whether they serve eight years or 10 years, if that person’s not prepared to be released, they’re going to be back. They’re going to be back.”
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