Experts Speak on Correction – Parole, Prison, and the Possibility of Change, by Ben Austen
By Pam Gates and Sherry Reames
A good-sized crowd turned out on Feb. 1 to hear a panel organized by the UW Law School on issues surrounding parole: its pros and cons, how it works, how it doesn’t work, and how it could work. The panelists were journalist and author Ben Austen; Wisconsin ACLU staff attorney Emma Shakeshaft; John Tate II, Wisconsin Parole Commission chair 2019-’22, and Dant’e Cottingham, a former juvenile lifer who received parole during Tate’s term and is now associate director of EXPO. Professor Kate Finley of the UW Law School moderated this “dream panel,” as Austen described it.
When Finley asked Austen why he wrote this book, he answered: “It’s the 50-year mark for mass incarceration. We’re conditioned to not think about the prison system. But looking at parole shows you both the crime and all the subsequent time in prison. And what’s the point of all that time?” In the wide-ranging conversation that followed, the panelists returned repeatedly to this question, and to several related ones.
How are paroles granted (or not)? John Tate explained that an individual’s parole-eligibility date is given at sentencing. Once that date has passed, a parole commissioner evaluates each application for parole on the basis of the individual’s completion of required programs, in-prison conduct, release plan, and risk assessment if released, as well as the time served. The chair reviews the commissioner’s recommendation and makes a decision, sometimes release but most often deferral (apply again after a prescribed length of time). There is no appeal process.
How long are incarcerated people in Wisconsin waiting before parole? As Shakeshaft pointed out, almost everyone in Wisconsin who’s parole-eligible has been incarcerated since before 2000, when Wisconsin changed to Truth in Sentencing. Last year, 801 of those people applied for release on parole, but only 37 of them were allowed to go home. By contrast, over 400 were released under Tate’s leadership, from March 2020 to June 2022. “Covid gave the decision-makers courage,” Shakeshaft commented. Tate explained that Covid also gave him the opportunity to streamline the parole process.
What does parole achieve when the system works as intended? “Do we want parole?” Austen asked. “Will it make our society more just? There are hundreds of thousands of people living in the system, serving extremely long sentences. Parole offers moments of grace and miracle. We need systems of second chances.”
The possibility of parole can provide prisoners with hope and motivation to change. Cottingham called it “a blessing and a miracle” that he himself is now free, after serving 27 years for a crime at age 17, but he also made it clear that he turned his life around during those years. “Under [Wisconsin’s] old law,” he explained, “there were incentives to do well, to work hard. Under the new law – Truth in Sentencing – there are no incentives to participate in rehab and improvement.”
What often goes wrong with this system? When Illinois abolished its parole system in 1978, even people in prison approved of the change, Austen said, because they viewed the system as racist and unjust. ““Parole is a contest of storytelling,” he explained. “The parole board is not an investigative body. It’s supposed to weigh what has happened since the crime was committed, but there’s a catch-22: the crime story, which gets told over and over. And that story doesn’t change.” States that have moved beyond just focusing on the seriousness of the crime have succeeded in significantly increasing their parole rates, but that’s hard to do. Shakeshaft agreed, noting that mass incarceration wasn’t constructed overnight. The standards don’t allow for rehabilitation. Many bills and many policies have kept people inside. We see “catch-22” time and time again, she said.
In 2018, Shakeshaft and the ACLU filed suit against Wisconsin’s parole system, alleging violations of the Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments in the system’s treatment of individuals like Cottingham, who had committed crimes as minors and whose immaturity at the time of the crime was not being considered in deciding whether to grant parole. Many of those former juvenile offenders have subsequently been released, thanks in large part to the work of John Tate (who tried to reduce the barriers to such releases) as well as the ACLU. But Wisconsin’s prison population still includes many kids who received excessively long sentences, and those kids are disproportionately non-white. “We have to be intentional about race issues as we consider solutions,” Shakeshaft said.
Why should individuals convicted of a serious crime be given a second chance? “Because people change,” Tate said. “That’s the principle, to be applied universally – when it’s hard, and when it’s easy. I knew going into the role [of Parole Commission chair] that I’d have to take the hit [for controversial decisions],” he added. “Parole commissioners are civil servants, not subject to the whim of politicians. The chair? Not so much.” Tate strongly believes in Bryan Stevenson’s adage, that “We’re all better than the worst thing we’ve ever done.” He also asked, “Is the person seeking parole still the same person who committed the crime? If not, we’re punishing the wrong person.”
Cottingham added that we as a society need the talents and insights of the people in prison. They have a lot to offer, not just despite but also because of their prison experiences, which can make them ideal mentors for others who need help because of traumas, addictions, and social stigmas.
What about the role of victims in parole hearings? “For a crime victim, there is life before the crime and life after it,” Austen said. “Victims are locked into the process of parole. Their statements are always powerful. They’re asking for more punishment, but the system is failing them, too. Victims and criminals are trapped by the same experience. Restorative justice could bring something better.”
How can the correctional system do a better job of rehabilitation? “No program will rehabilitate everyone,” Tate said; “it starts with the person. We need to provide opportunities to help incarcerated people slow down their thinking, evaluate themselves.”
Cottingham testified that most of his experiences during incarceration seemed designed to break people, not to encourage self-evaluation. What finally touched him was a restorative justice circle organized by the Rev. Jerry Hancock. “I had to take an honest, clean look at myself,” Cottingham recalled. “In the circle, I was sitting next to a woman who had been the victim of a burglary. She was shaking the whole time she told the story, she was so traumatized by the experience. I thought, ‘I did that.’”
“What is rehab?” Cottingham mused later. “It’s being honest with oneself. We need trauma-informed care. Rehab in Wisconsin gets an ‘F’ from me. But there is hope; there are good people.”
What about the possibility of recidivism? Statistics show that practically no Wisconsin prisoners released on parole in recent years have been returned to prison for committing a new crime, but they all live with the possibility of being sent back for rule violations. “Your parole officer has your life in his or her hands,” Cottingham said. “When you’re locked up, the P.O. can investigate for 21 days. You can lose your job, your housing [waiting in jail for a decision.] Over 5,000 are in prison in Wisconsin due to rule violations.” Austen said that 25% of those in prison across the U.S. are there for rule violations.
How can we change the system? “Storytelling,” Austen said. Police unions and “tough-on-crime” politicians tend to oppose any form of mercy to former offenders, refusing to grant that people change. “We have to figure out how to tell better stories, stories with emotional appeal,” he said. “Statistics alone can’t change people’s minds.”
And former Parole Chair John Tate added: “We should be talking about what we’re doing – and why. The counter-narrative was so easy to consume.”