The Montgomery Advertiser
John Davis
February 16, 2006
 
 

The Legislature is trying to decide whether Alabama is big enough for two parole boards. Alabama's second parole board, which was created by Gov. Bob Riley in 2003 to expedite the release of nonviolent offenders, is being given its walking papers, but its members want to stick around for three more years. The original parole board says it's time to let the other board go.

The Alabama Senate could return to the issue today. A bill that made its way to the Senate floor Tuesday would extend the life of Alabama's second parole board for three more years, at a cost of between $415,000 and $432,000 annually. If the bill doesn't pass, the second board will disband in September.

"There's conflicting information," said Riley spokesman Jeff Emerson. "We don't know which one is accurate." Riley supports ending the board if it will save tax dollars and not overload the original board with work.

In 2004, the two boards increased Alabama's parole rate by 31 percent, the second-highest growth rate in the nation. "We basically heard every nonviolent inmate in the prison system at that time," said William Segrest, executive director of the Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles.

The days of massive parole hearings are over. Last month, the two boards heard a total of 769 cases. In July 2003, the original parole board took on 1,002 cases by itself.

Don McGriff, a member of the second board, said the need for more paroles is greater than ever. He said that possible law changes now in the Legislature could cause parole cases to spike again.

"It's just no time with all the overcrowding to get rid of the extra parole board," he said. McGriff points to an inmate population in Alabama that is as high as it has ever been, but at the same time Riley's nonviolent offenders program has run its course.

McGriff makes about $79,000 a year in the job, plus benefits. Typically, both parole boards meet three days a week. "If the board was really doing what it was supposed to be doing, then we wouldn't be sending folks to Louisiana," said Sen. E.B. McClain, D-Midfield, on Tuesday.

Whether the board's life will be extended remains to be seen. The Senate adjourned Tuesday as McClain was filibustering the bill. It remains unfinished business in the upper chamber.

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