Henry Is Wrong: Study Shows Violent Criminals on Parole Are NOT Less Likely to Recommit Crimes

SENATOR COFFEE: Gov. Henry is Putting Families at Risk by Releasing A Violent Criminal Every Workday

State Capitol, Oklahoma City – Senate Republican Leader Glenn Coffee said Friday that a new criminal justice study shows that Gov. Brad Henry was “flat wrong” when he claimed Wednesday that releasing violent criminals on supervised parole is better than making them serve their full sentence.

The national study released Thursday by the nonpartisan Urban Institute showed that “supervised violent offenders were no less likely to be rearrested” than those who complete their full sentences and are released unsupervised. It is the first multistate study comparing the criminal activity of prisoners who are supervised after release with that of their unsupervised counterparts.

“Gov. Henry’s claim that he is doing us all a favor by releasing more violent criminals early is flat wrong. My preference, and I believe that of most Oklahomans, is that violent criminals should serve every last minute of their sentence,” Coffee said.

Wednesday, Senate Republicans released data they obtained from the state Pardon and Parole Board showing that Henry has released nearly 500 violent criminals from prison early since he took office two years ago – almost a 100 percent increase compared to former Gov. Frank Keating’s final two years in office.

“This is not a political issue – it is about keeping Oklahoma families safe from the bad guys. Gov. Henry has doubled the number of violent offenders being released early since he took office. On average he is releasing one violent criminal almost every workday. This is putting Oklahoma families more at risk,” stated Coffee, R-Oklahoma City. “My hope is that by exposing what this governor is doing we can slow down his rate of paroles and make it less likely that one of his parolees hurts someone.”

EXCERPT OF FINDINGS OF URBAN INSTITUTE STUDY RELEASED

“The public safety impact of supervision is minimal at best among the largest groups of released prisoners (about 80 percent of the sample) -- males involved in drug, property, or violent crimes. Only property offenders released to discretionary parole had lower rearrest rates than their unsupervised counterparts. Supervised violent offenders were no less likely to be rearrested than similar unconditional releases. For drug offenders, mandatory supervised parole led to higher rearrest rates than unconditional release or discretionary parole, perhaps partly because of heightened surveillance, including frequent drug testing.”

FULL STUDY: http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/311156_Does_Parole_Work.pdf