This is an opinion column.

Then there were three. Finally.

Three board members of the Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles. A full house. Finally.

Last week Gov. Kay Ivey selected Gabrielle Simmons, director of operations for the Alabama Bureau of Pardons and Paroles (not to be confused with the aforementioned P & P board), from a list of five names submitted to fill a board seat that was vacant since June.

That’s when Kim Davidson departed after being appointed in March to fill the seat left after David Spurlock resigned last December. Still with me, folks?

Thus, between December 2022 and March 2023, and again between June and last week, the board convened with only two members. Voted with only two members.

What does it matter?

Well, because two yay votes are required for parole to be granted, and the chances of that happening when there are only two votes is all but none to none. (A 1-1 vote simply rolls the case into the first month for re-hearing before a full board.)

Here are parole grant rates for two-member months December (8%), January (2%), and February (5%). Rose somewhat in March (18%), April (12%), and May (18%) when there were three seated members. They then plummeted after Davidson left; June saw an abysmal 10%. grant rate. July? 3% (with just two voting members there was a bunch of 1-1s that will be reheard this month.)

Why even meet?

Even the highest among those rates mock Alabama’s own grant guidelines, which the board revised in July 2020 to “ensure the consistent review of certain common decisional factors for all offenders.”

Mission not accomplished. Not with this non-parole board.

Why? Because board members are under no obligation to even look at—let alone, utilize—reports on the applicant prepared by parole officers based on an interview with the incarcerated individual and myriad other factors, including the weight of the offense, risk of recidivism, and behavior while incarcerated.

So, the reports might as well be paperweights, or doorstops blocking the path to freedom someone might deserve—and receive—if votes were based on the guidelines, which assign a score to the individual that recommends whether parole should be granted or denied.

In FY 2021, the guidelines recommended parole for 76% of those up for consideration, as reported by AL.com colleague Mike Cason in November 2021. The board followed the guidelines only 39% of the time. The overall grant rate was 15%.

In FY 2022, the guideline recommended rate was just over 80%, yet the board followed them only about a quarter of the time. For the year, the grant rate was a stingy 10%. (Heads up: It may be worse this year.)

Simmons’ presence on a full board—which is chaired by Leigh Gwathney, a hard-line former Jefferson County deputy district attorney and former assistant state attorney general—will likely give applicants a fairer look, and better opportunity for freedom. Only legislation, though, will compel the board to respect its guidelines and honor an applicant’s right to receive a fair assessment of their case for freedom.

Rep. Chris England (D-Tuscaloosa) has not been shy about criticizing the board or its chair. “The parole board essentially has no oversight, so they can, and pretty much do whatever they want,” he told me. “It’s clear under this current chair, it’s just not working.”

England introduced a bill during the last session with parameters compelling the board to adhere to its guidelines or, at minimum explain why it did not, and an appeal process, which does not currently exist.

It died, of course, in our Republican-clutched legislature, which is as serious about reforming our overcrowded, unconstitutional—as found by the U.S. Department of Justice—prisons as about redrawing gerrymandering house districts deemed racist by the U.S. Supreme Court.

“As a result of the parole board, we’re not releasing anyone,” England says. “We’re creating a backlog of really old, really expensive people that would probably be better served outside of the facility. Since appealing to humanity doesn’t pay off anymore, we’re trying to present it as an [economic] issue: If you wanted to get more out of your money going into the criminal justice system, instead of providing hospice care, it would be better if they were out and cared for under some other [healthcare] network.”

We’re here because the pervasive mindset in our state regarding those convicted of crimes is lock-’em-up-and-lose-the-key. Our empathy for the incarcerated runs close to “E.”

It wasn’t always so.

In FY 2016, FY 2017 and FY 2018, the board’s grant rates were 48%, 54%, and 53%, respectively. That was before Jimmy O’Neal Spencer killed three people in Guntersville in 2018, eight months after being paroled. He was convicted of the crimes late last year and sentenced to death in November 2022.

His release was a clear, fatal, and tragic mistake—and parole applicants, no matter the severity of their crime, are still paying for it. Still paying for it even though violent offenders are less likely to be arrested for another crime within five years (65%) than someone who committed robbery (78%), says the Bureau of Justice Statistics. More than half of those re-offenses were other crimes, like DUI, weapons possession, or another parole violation.

And often claims that the formerly incarcerated are another crime waiting to happen are simply unfounded, though still utilized to stoke fears. Remember the proliferation of sky-will-fall claims in back January when the Alabama Department of Corrections freed 369 incarcerated individuals, most of whom were within a year of reaching the end of their sentence?

Attorney General Steve Marshall even spent your tax dollars—something he loves to do chasing his agenda—on a failed lawsuit seeking to delay the release.

Well, here’s the truth: Between January and this past Wednesday, 1,236 men and women have been released by the DOC. The recidivism rate for that group is just 10.8% (134 committed new offenses).

The state’s overall recidivism rate is 30%.

Ivey appointed Gwathney to the Pardon and Parole board in October 2019. After FY 2019 saw a 31% grant rate, it plummeted to 20% in FY2020.

Last month, after the Alabama Daily News posted on social media that the board’s grant rate this year was tracking towards a stunning 7%, England responded with scathing words for the chair:

Simmons’ presence won’t likely result in a quick spike grant rates (“law-and-order” trolls are watching every vote). But if Alabama is to ever extinguish its prison hell, it must, in part, thin its massive population with fairness, empathy, and sincere intentionality.

Based on its own guidelines. Finally.

More columns by Roy S. Johnson

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Conquering from the outside, Sha’Carri Richardson is back in the fast lane for greatness

‘Skinny-shamed’ as a youth, Birmingham mom now a champion bodybuilder

Racists threaten woman aiding Newbern’s Black mayor

Indian American, fired by Huntsville contractor after telephone call with dying relative, files lawsuit

I’m a Pulitzer Prize finalist for commentary, a member of the National Association of Black Journalists Hall of Fame, and winner of the Edward R. Murrow prize for podcasts for “Unjustifiable,” co-hosted with John Archibald. My column appears in AL.com, as well as the Lede. Check out my new podcast series “Panther: Blueprint for Black Power,” which I co-host with Eunice Elliott. Subscribe to my free weekly newsletter, The Barbershop, here. Reach me at [email protected], follow me at twitter.com/roysj, or on Instagram @roysj