Advocates with Alabamians for Fair Justice, who have pushed for changes in the state’s prisons and criminal justice system for several years, were back at the Alabama State House today to call for change at the Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles, where the rate of paroles granted has dropped sharply and continues to fall.

The coalition held a luncheon in a State House committee room today to talk about the need for change and advise supporters on how to lobby state lawmakers.

“We just want the parole board to recognize what all of us in this room do,” Alison Mollman, senior counsel for the ACLU of Alabama, told the group. “That just because you go to prison, just because you’re convicted of an offense, that doesn’t define who you are and what you’re capable of going forward. We are all capable of redemption.”

Alabama’s three-member parole board heard 4,009 cases last fiscal year and granted parole to 409 of those inmates, or 10 percent. During the first five months of this fiscal year, which started Oct. 1, the board has heard more than 1,700 cases and granted parole only 6 percent of the time.

Those numbers continue a downward trend that started after 2018, when the board granted paroles in 53 percent of cases. The grant rate dropped to 31 percent in 2019, 20 percent in 2020, and 15 percent in 2021.

The Alabamians for Fair Justice coalition includes the ACLU of Alabama , the Alabama Appleseed Center for Law & Justice, the SPLC Action Fund, and other groups. They lobbied today in support of a bill by Rep. Chris England, D-Tuscaloosa, that would create an eight-member Alabama Criminal Justice Police Development Council. The council would write guidelines for the parole board to use in parole decisions. The board would have to follow the guidelines or explain in writing if it does not.

If the guidelines recommended parole for an inmate and the board denied parole, the inmate could appeal that decision to Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals, which would have the final say.

The parole board already has guidelines adopted in 2020 intended to help make parole decisions. But the guidelines are not binding, and the board’s decisions conform with them only about one-fourth of the time. For example, in February, granted only 16 paroles out of 322 cases heard. But the guidelines called for granting parole in 81 percent of those cases.

The board’s record of not following the current guidelines is one of the criticisms of the board made by those calling for change.

“We’re not entirely clear on what they are using to evaluate on a case-by-case basis, the circumstances to make their decision,” said Dillon Nettles, policy and advocacy director for the ACLU of Alabama. “And we would like to see more accountability for that reason.”

The current parole guidelines assign a score to parole candidates based on factors such as seriousness of the offense, risk of reoffending, discipline record in prison, participation in programs, and others. Institutional parole officers interview the inmates and prepare the reports. Scores of 0 to 7 suggest parole should be granted, while 8 or more suggest denial. Read the guidelines.

So far in this legislative session, England’s bill to require changes at the parole board has not advanced. The bill ran into opposition last week in the House Judiciary Committee. The committee assigned the bill to a subcommittee for more work. The bill is not on the committee’s agenda for its regular weekly meeting on Wednesday. The bill will have to clear the Judiciary Committee to have a chance to pass. England proposed a similar bill last year but it did not pass.

The steep drop in the rate of paroles granted in Alabama started after parolee Jimmy O’Neal Spencer was charged with killing two women and a child in Guntersville in 2018, about six months after he was paroled. Spencer was convicted and sentenced to death last year.

After Spencer’s deadly crime spree, Gov. Kay Ivey and Attorney General Steve Marshall successfully lobbied for legislation to tighten rules on early parole and make other changes. Advocacy groups for victims and others have defended the parole board’s reduced rate of granting parole, saying there are fewer good candidates for parole because violent offenders make about 80 percent of the state’s prison population, a larger portion than before criminal justice reforms passed in 2015.

But there is some disagreement about how Alabama defines violent offenses. Also, supporters of reform say concerns about public safety do not justify some of the board’s decisions to deny parole, such as keeping elderly inmates in poor health behind bars decades after their crimes. They also note that the low parole rate contributes to overcrowding in Alabama’s prison, which the Department of Justice alleges hold men in conditions that violate the Constitution.

“The truth is that Alabama’s system is not ensuring public safety by keeping people incarcerated much longer than they perhaps need to be and much longer than perhaps they would be able to make a positive transition back into their communities,” Nettles said.

The group of about 60 people at the Alabamians for Fair Justice luncheon included students in grades 6 through 8 from Bush Hills Academy in Birmingham, Veronica R. Johnson interim executive director of the Alabama Justice Coalition, said the State House experience would be good for the students.

“So many times many people don’t understand the legislative process,” Johnson said. “So if we can get them here to talk to our legislators, have them to understand the process, as well as the impact it has on their lives, I think that is very important.”