http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/29/national/29PARO.html
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November 29, 2000
Often, Parole Is One Stop on the Way Back to Prison
By FOX BUTTERFIELD
L OS ANGELES, Nov. 22 It seemed like the perfect solution. Build
more prisons and America would be a safer place. In fact, as the
nation's incarceration rate has quadrupled over the last two
decades, the crime rate has fallen for eight straight years.
But only now are politicians and criminologists beginning to
confront an unexpected consequence of the get-tough-on-crime
philosophy that created the prison-building boom. More prisoners in
prison means that, eventually, more prisoners will be let out. This
year, a record 600,000 inmates will be released from state and
federal prisons nationwide, up from 170,000 in 1980.
As the former prisoners return, largely to the poor neighborhoods
of large cities, there is mounting evidence that they represent
what some criminologists and prison officials now call the
collateral damage of the prison- building boom.
Because states sharply curtailed education, job training and other
rehabilitation programs inside prisons, the newly released inmates
are far less likely than their counterparts two decades ago to find
jobs, maintain stable family lives or stay out of the kind of
trouble that leads to more prison. Many states have unintentionally
contributed to these problems by abolishing early release for good
behavior, removing the incentive for inmates to improve their
conduct, the experts say.
In addition, parole officers are quicker to revoke a newly released
inmate's parole for minor violations, like failing a drug test,
meaning more inmates are returned to prison time and again,
creating what some experts say is a self-perpetuating prison class.
In California, for example, 68 percent of the people admitted to
prison last year were on parole at the time they were sent back, up
from only 21 percent in 1980, according to the California
Department of Corrections.
Evidence of the troubles posed by the large number of returning
prisoners is beginning to show up across the nation.
In Boston, which has had one of the largest declines in crime of
any major city, the police superintendent, Paul Joyce, said that
newly released inmates were a major reason for a 13 percent
increase in firearms-related crimes in the first half of the year.
Mr. Joyce said part of the reason was that the former inmates
brought prison grudges or gang affiliations back to the streets.
In Tallahassee, Fla., Todd Clear and Dina Rose, a husband and wife
team of criminologists, have found that the crime rate in poor
neighborhoods rises as the number of newly released inmates
increases. Family and financial pressures often are the cause, they
say including the pressure to pay the $50 to $150 the state charges
them for their own supervision.
California Led the Way
Although law enforcement experts say that the large number of
inmates being returned to prisons is a nationwide phenomenon,
nowhere is it more striking than in California, the state with the
largest prison population and the first state to abolish flexible
sentences, which historically led to early release for good
behavior.
In California, four out of five former inmates returned to prison
were sent back not for committing new crimes but for technical
violations of the terms of their parole; for example, failing a
drug test or missing appointments with parole agents.
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