WASHINGTON – The percentage of Maryland parolees who successfully completed parole fell sharply in the 1990s, according to new figures from the U.S. Department of Justice.
The report, released Wednesday, said that about half the state’s parolees violated parole in 1999 compared with only about one-third in 1990. It said the national rate of parole violators was largely unchanged during the same period.
State officials could not comment directly on the numbers Thursday, stressing that they had not had a chance to validate the Justice Department’s findings. But they offered several possible explanations for the reported increase, including increased vigilance by parole officers and a tougher class of prison inmate.
“The more you watch criminal offenders and the more stringently you watch them, the greater the number of violations you’ll find,” said Leonard Sipes, a spokesman for the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services.
Some experts also suggested that the figures might be higher because they included not just inmates on parole, but also prisoners who completed their sentences and were released. Mandatory sentencing is creating more such inmates, who are more likely to get in trouble if they are just dumped on the street without supervision of a parole officer after being in prison, they said.
“They lost the opportunity for prisoners to be monitored on the outside,” said Faye Taxman, a parole expert at the University of Maryland.
“People are getting out of prison with minimal conditions hanging over them,” Taxman said. “And they’re less likely to get services.”
While Sipes said the state is keeping a closer eye on parolees, labor officials said parole agents are being overworked.
Most parole offices are understaffed and some agents have caseloads near 200, said Janet Anderson, a spokeswoman for the Maryland Classified Employees Association. They also have to take on other responsibilities in their offices.
“Not only must they supervise folks charged with serious crimes, but they’re also asked to do things like urinalysis and clerical work,” she said. “They’re really spread thin.”
Sipes said the average parole officer is responsible for about 100 cases. That caseload should be cut in half, he said, with the addition of 70 new officers in the near future.
Experts and lawmakers said the state’s recent increased spending on rehabilitation should improve the success rate in the coming decade.
“Today, after many years, the government finally has seen the light that drug rehabilitation is an absolute necessity,” said Delegate Joseph Vallario, D- Prince George’s, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.
Sipes also noted that Maryland is currently enjoying “its lowest point in total crime in the last 25 years.”
“We’re putting the heat on criminal offenders as the state never has before,” he said.
The Justice Department report said that parole violators accounted for about a third of Maryland prison admissions in 1999.
Maryland began the decade with a parole completion success rate of 67 percent, much higher than the national rate of 45 percent at the time. Maryland’s success rate dipped slightly to 65 percent in 1995, then fell sharply to 47 percent by 1999. That was slightly higher than the national success rate of 42 percent in 1999.