Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, September 12, 1994 TAG: 9409130028
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By FRANK GREEN THE RICHMOND TIMES-DISPATCH For The Associated Press
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Understandably, the four parolees oppose Gov. George Allen's plan to eliminate the practice that freed them from prison early.
But ending parole will lead to more dangerous streets as well as more dangerous prisons, said one who asked that his name not be used because he is applying for a new job.
Without parole, the parolee said, criminals would decide, ``I'm going to eliminate that [victim] altogether. That way I don't have no witness.''
If he were to return to crime, he said, ``I'm going to go for the gusto, I'm going to go for the entire thing because I don't have nothing to lose.''
This parolee and his three colleagues also dispute the administration's claim that a maximum of 15 percent off a sentence for good behavior will be sufficient.
``If I'm looking at a situation where I'm going to get 20 years without parole, then what do I have to lose? What do I have to lose?'' the parolee asked.
Dr. George H. Johnson, an adviser to a Richmond ex-offender support group, arranged a group interview with the four men. All are repeat offenders who've been incarcerated for offenses ranging from forgery and larceny to aggravated assault.
Each committed a crime, was paroled, committed another crime and is either on parole again or has successfully completed his probation period.
They also criticized Allen's parole abolition plan as being politically motivated and racially biased. All four were black.
Allen argues that his proposal to lock violent criminals away longer will benefit the high-crime black neighborhoods by reducing crime.
The parolees were most concerned that more be done to prepare inmates for life on the outside and to help them once they are released, particularly if they remain in prison longer.
Pressures to return to crime are strong, they said.
Overcoming the stigma of being a criminal is difficult, said Albert Jeter, 42. ``Even though a person gets parole, he's doing that time for the rest of his life, really. You've still got to pay for that crime every time you go to apply for a job.
``They never let you forget it,'' he said.
Jeter also said that after five years in prison, most inmates lose what little support they may have had on the outside.
``It's a question of stripping everything from a man. Most marriages are done away with within the first five years of incarceration so if you're talking about housing a man longer than that, the chances of him coming back out into society and having something are close to nothing.
``While I was incarcerated my father died, my grandmother died. A lot of things can change in a short period of time,'' Jeter said.
Johnson, the parole support group adviser, said that ``what the Allen plan ignores is the problems these guys are talking about'' once they have been released.
Proponents of parole abolition advocate more jobs and training for inmates, though the parolees said they do not believe that will happen because building the needed prisons will absorb resources.
``If there is no parole the taxpayers will have to pay for it. I think the taxpayers of Virginia should be informed how much it is going to cost in years to come,'' said James Phillips, 49.
The Allen plan does recommend that ``transitional policies'' be developed to overcome obstacles prisoners have returning to society. But the authors of the plan also noted that they ``feel strongly that neither society nor the government has any obligation to the released offender.''
Alvin Lewis, a 43-year-old former inmate, complained ``Governor Allen's doing what all politicians are doing - he's playing on the fears of the public and ... he's using criminals as pawns.
``They politickin' and they politickin' with people's lives and not trying to solve the problem. They're just ... giving the people that voted them in what they promised they were going to do,'' Lewis said.
Jeter agreed. ``Whenever they want to do something they pick on the people they don't have to worry about to get re-elected: people that either don't vote, like many on welfare, or people that can't,'' like felons.
``What I see the governor doing is taking the easy route instead of dealing with the [causes] of crime,'' he said. ``I think we need to look at some other things instead of just warehousing people ... we're human beings.''
Johnson said ``I'm tired of the Timothy Spencer specter ... nobody tells the other side of the story'' about paroled inmates who are successful.
Spencer, dubbed the ``South Side Strangler,'' was executed earlier this year for a series of 1987 rapes and slayings that occurred while he lived in a prison halfway house in South Richmond.
``The people who get out and commit another murder is rare, but it's in the paper. But what about the people who commit a homicide and come out and never commit another homicide again? You don't read about them,'' Phillips said.
Yet, all four of the parolees are testament to the lure of the criminal mind set. Each is a one-time recidivist.
Johnson also expressed doubts that the Allen plan really is intended to accomplish what it says it will. ``I'm stopping short of calling it racist,'' he said.
``I would hate to think that Allen's intentions are racist in nature. I think he's yielding to the pressure, but I think we need to take a look at the stats and see who is this policy going to affect,'' Johnson said.
The answer, Lewis said, is ``poor people, minorities and former offenders.'' Lewis was more direct than Johnson in voicing his suspicions: ``I'm saying it is racist.''
The parolees concede that minorities are the most frequent victims of crime, but dispute the notion that ending parole and other measures are intended to help blacks.
``So, in order to help resolve black-on-black crime you take a man or woman... and you give them prison without parole. What's the impact of that on the community? Is that going to resolve the problem?'' Johnson asked.
But Lewis comes up with a different bottom line.
``If I was to go to prison now with a 20-year sentence without the possibility of parole, what is there left for me to do?
``I would do what I want to do [in prison] and eventually I will get out without any training. I will have lost contact with society and put right back out on the street."
by CNB