What Exactly Does it Take to Qualify for Parole from Prison?

 The book of Proverbs says, "Hope deferred makes the heart sick" (13:12), an experience probably shared by nearly everyone. One doesn't have to be incarcerated to experience deferred hope. It's a common human experience. 

In prisons, the object of one's hope is often freedom. Most prisoners are eligible for freedom at some point, though many more are not. Yet, those with non-parolable life sentences sometimes still hold onto hope that their condition will change. Perhaps a law will change, or new evidence will change their sentence, or, the ultimate unicorn, a governor might commute one's sentence. These all leave a shred of hope dangling precariously in the middle of the powerful trap jaws of disappointment. With nothing else to hold onto, it's difficult for prisoners to avoid reaching out for this hope, even if disappointment has snapped it's vicious jaws down time after time. 

One subset of prisoners, those with parolable life sentences, face a unique situation. Their sentences are technically for one's natural life, but the parolable part means they can be paroled (after 15 years in Michigan) if the conditions are right. But those conditions are not spelled out. So these prisoners are left to try their hardest to demonstrate rehabilitation. The problem is that with a life sentence, they are not eligible for more programming in prison. They are forbidden, by policy, from participating in programming that will demonstrate an effort to rehabilitate. 

Still, many of these prisoners find a way to put in the work. Such is the case with a friend of mine, whom I'll call K.D. K.D. was sentenced, as a juvenile, to parolable life in prison for committing a murder while he was high on drugs. Since that time, K.D. has participated in as many programs as he could find a way into, including training seeing-eye dogs for the blind, and earning a college degree. He has also attended and now helps lead voluntary substance abuse classes. He's done all he knows to do to demonstrate he is rehabilitated. 

In recent years, a U.S. Supreme Court case deemed it unconstitutional to sentence juveniles to a mandatory life sentence. But parolable life sentences are not considered "life" under this ruling. Thus, K.D. does not qualify to be resentenced to a term of years. This should not pose much of a problem since after serving more than two decades in prison he is already eligible for parole. But the victim in his case belonged to a family with political connections. And thus begin the vicious jaws of disappoint to snap shut. 

After having to wait five years since the parole board last expressed no interest in releasing him, K.D. has worked even harder to demonstrate that he is rehabilitated. Yet, despite all of the positive demonstrations in his parole file, the parole board recently announced they were, yet again, not interested. In Michigan, the parole board does not have to give a reason for their denial, either. They simply state, "No interest." 

When a judge sentences an offender to a parolable life sentence, his or her intention is that the offender has a chance to leave prison, provided the prisoner demonstrates rehabilitation. Parolable life sentences were never meant to be used as a tool to curry political favor. Although victims' families have a right to file objections to the release of a prisoner serving a parolable life sentence, those objections ought to be taken into account in light of the prisoner's demonstrated work of rehabilitation. Objections must be measured against the backdrop of demonstrated rehabilitation; otherwise, what's the point? 

The chance at freedom ought to be real to those who qualify for it, not dangled forever out of reach after being served on a platter of hope. Prison is supposed to be part of a system of justice, not a system that perpetuates injustice. Favoring those with political connections is just such an example of injustice. If the justice system never intended to release someone, they should not have issued a sentence based on the hope of eventual releases. 

Today, K.D.'s hope for release is not dead, but he must wait another five years to find out if what he does between now and then will be enough. He must wait another five years to find out if political games, not demonstrated rehabilitation, continue to determine whether or not he'll leave prison.