EVALUATION OF RACIAL DATA PERTAINING TO
SHE INCARCERATION AND RELEASE OF OHIO CITIZENS
In order to properly evaluate the actions of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction and the Adult Parole Authority we should first scrutinize the prison intake figures. The first area we will review is the ethnic data. The first question we will seek to answer is this: "Does the ODRC and the APA practice racial discrimination in any form when making it s parole decisions?"
Using the ODRC's own annual report and periodic releases we see that in 1994 there were 19,198 persons incarcerated. Of these, 11,056 were Black males and females. The remaining 8,142 consisted mainly of White males and females. It is assumed that because there is only a black and white breakdown that what Hispanics, Asians and Native Americans who were imprisoned that year were lumped together under the Black grouping. This provides a percentage breakdown of 43.19% Whites and 56.8% Blacks and other groups combined. The ODRC's 1995 commitment figores are larger showing 19,954 persons imprisoned during that year. Additionally the ODRC's 1996 data shows a drop in incarcerations to 19,091 persons. The racial breakdown for that year was 54.3% Black, 43.6% White and 2.0% Hispanic. It can safely be assumed that due to the 2.5% drop in the Black grouping, the advent of a 2.0% Hispanic group and a rise of nearly 0.5% in the White grouping for 1996 that the Asians and Native Americans are now in the White group for ODRC record keeping purposes. Viewing these figures from a practical standpoint and assuming the ODRC's stated average length of imprisonment of 23 R months as accurate then the prison population should be fairly stable. The annual increase in commitments between 1994 and 1995 is only 756 persons. The 1996 figure of 19,091 is 107 persons less than 1994 figures. (See Appendix Item Four)
Note the ethnic percentages between 1994 and 1996 are very close with Blacks making up 56.8% of the intake in 1994 and 54.3% of the intake in 1996. This 2.0% drop may be due to the provision in 1996 for a separate grouping for Hispanics The White grouping had 43.19% of the 1994 intake and 43.6% of the 1996 intake of prisoners in Ohio. the 0.41X increase in Whites in 1996 may be due to the shifting of Asians and Native Americans to this category for record keeping purposes. To Summarize, we find that Ohio imprisons an average of 19,414 persons annually. Of these, approximately 54% are Black and 43% are White.
Currently there are prisoners incarcerated in Ohio prisons serving three distinct types of sentences under two separate sets of laws for the same types of offenses. Two of these types of sentences are known as "Flat Time" or more correctly known as "Definite Sentence." These sentences are imposed by the judge and these prisoners are released when their court imposed sentences expire. There is in this group a standard mix of the prison population as they come before the courts from the general population. No one can interfere with their release once their time is up.
The second type of sentence is known as a "Tail," more correctly referred to as an "Indefinite Sentence." This sentence is also imposed by the judge but has a flexible number of years such as 5 to 25 years. After tho minimum sentence is served then the prisoner goes in front of the Parole Board for possible release. The Parole Board has a fixed set of guidelines that are supposed to be applied to each prisoner's case to insure a fair assessment and determination of that person's fitness for release back into society. According to a survey conducted by CURE Ohio with the help of the Correctional Institution Inspection Committee in February of 1996, 84% of judges
anticipated that those they sentence will be released by the Parole Board when the minimum sentence has been served barring antisocial behavior while in prison. (See Appendix Item 5)
So in Ohio we have two separate types of sentences being served by prisoners. Both of the sentences are given to people who come in front of the courts from out of the general population. It could be safely assumed then that what comes in must go out and in approximately the same proportion. In order to test this idea of "In Equals Out" we shall first examine the one group which has no outside interference during the length of their imprisonment. This is the group of prisoners serving Dcfinite Sentences.
Keep in mind this data was accumulated prior to and through the effective date of S.B. 2 and it's resulting all "Definite Sentence" structure.
Due to the lag time from jail to court to the Correctional Reception Center to their final parent institution these prisoners are just now making their presence felt. Their effect upon our Definite Sentence release data is zero. To test this group we chose one medium/minimum security institution in Ohio and accumulated data covering December, 1991, through January, 1997. This data included a total of 2139 males released back into society at the end of their Definite Sentence. From this data we were able to show that if the Definite Sentence group reflects the crime situation in society then the crime rate is indeed dropping. Note the line graph shown below. Although there are wild monthly fluctuations the overall trend is a gentle slope downward. This reflects a reduction in the number of convictions and the resulting drop in releases from this category.
SEE mnreldef.bmp for data:
MEN RELEASED AT END OF DEFINITE SENTENCE PER MONTH
To investigate this group of 2,139 prisoners further we look at the ethnic breakdown next. If this group reflects the members of the general population which come before the courts then the racial groupings should match, or nearly so, the intake figures presented by the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction. Since those who have been forced to serve their maximum sentences are for statistical purposes considered "Max Outs;" they are included in this group. In referring to the Appendix Item Six, you will see that 56.24% of these 2,139 men released were African American and 41.98% were Caucasians. When this is compared to the Intake figures provided by the DR&C for 1994, we see that they are within 0.56% of being the same for African Americans and within 1.21% of being the same for the Caucasian group. These differences can be explained by the more thorough ethnic breakdown depicted in Item Six as compared to the purely Black and White breakdown of the DR&C's figures. This in effect shows with slight deviation due to record keeping.
Next we shall assess data covering the group imprisoned under the Indefinite Sentences. This group of people is the only group open to outside interference upon the length of their incarceration through the actions of the Parole Board. By 1990 the pressure of overcrowding in Ohio prisons was being strongly felt as budgets became larger and larger. In order to attempt to reduce this massive budgetary drain the legislature founded a commission on August 22, 1990 which was to formulate a new criminal code. This code was to, among other things, address the overcrowding in Ohio prisons. Some of the initial proposals, which were later incorporated into the new code, included going only to definite sentences (flat time), making the new sentences retroactive and eliminating the Parole Board. This commission's report was due on July 1st, 1993. Long before the report was available some serious lobbying started to change the commission's new code. The Parole Board was now fighting for it's retirement checks. This effort to save their jobs had started immediately upon the Sentencing Commission's first hints that the Parole Board was to be eliminated. In reviewing the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction's own 1994 report we see that the Parole Board started reducing the number of men released by giving "flops" or continuations of the prisoners minimum sentences; these "flops" ranged from three to ten years. This decline in paroles coincides with the increase in demand for new prisons and guaranteed that the Parole Board would have their jobs for a much longer period. But they had to establish a system which would extend the number of Indefinite Sentences prisoners for as long as possible.
In reviewing Appendix Item Three it is starkly apparent how severely the number of paroles was curtailed. After the release of the Commission's report the legislature started changing things to insure the Parole Board's survival. The retroactive provisions recommended by a Supreme Court Judge were dropped from the new code and "Post Release Supervision" was instituted. This meant that even when the men with Indefinite sentences were finally gorle the Parole Board would have a job. Finally the modified code was passed into law and on July 1, 1996, Senate Bill Two became effective. The new law's lack of retroactivity for those already imprisoned was immediately attacked in the courts but to protect it's future the Parole Board had already instituted a program under the guise of "getting tough on criminals" to prolong the availability of men with Indefinite Sentences.
SEE menmthpr.bmp TOTAL MEN PAROLED PER MONTH
In order to determine exactly how the Parole Board planned to insure
it's survival we have to review the release records from our selected
medium/minimum security institution. These records should reflect the actions of the Parole Board throughout the state of Ohio since it is unreasonable to think that the Board would have different rules for each prison. The full range of our records cover the period from December, 1991, to January, 1997. In order to break the figures down into usable increments we will divide these figures into calendar years. The total prisoners involved in these statistics are 1,645.
As we have already seen in Appendix Item Three parole release rate dropped from 42.72 in l990, to 23.9% in 1994, while the number of men eligible for parole increased by nearly 100%.
Next we will look at the ethnic data to see if, as with the Definite
Sentence prisoners, what comes in goes out. Remember that the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction intake figures showed 56.8% Black prisoners and 43.19% White prisoners. Breaking down the figures on the 1,645 men paroled between December, 1991 and January, 1997, we see that the racial breakdown is vastly different between those coming in and those going out on parole. Appendix Item Seven provides the comprehensive racial breakdown. Those listed in the other/unknown catagory refused to complete this portion of the paper work. From the release figures we see that of those paroled 60.97% are Black and 35.26% are White. This means that 4.17% MORE Blacks are paroled from the general prison population than comes into the system. In reviewing the White prisoner figures we see that 7.93% LESS Whites are paroled from the general prison population than comes into the system. Keep in mind that those sentenced under the Indefinite Sentences come before the courts randomly out of the general citizen population just as do the prisoners sentenced under the Definite Sentences. Definite Sentences release ratios match the intake ratios. Indefinite Sentence ratios should also fall within reasonable proximity of the ethnic intake figures but do not by a substantial margin. This can best be shown by a side by side comparison of the ethnic data as depicted below.
TOTAL MEN RELEASED BY ETHNIC GROUP
RELEASED ON PAROLE, OR RELEASED AT END OF DEFINITE
SHOCK PAROLE, OR FURLOUGH SENTENCE, OR FOR MAX CASE ________________________________________________________________
NUMBER PERCENT NUMBER PERCENT
AFRICAN-AMER. 1003 60.97% 1203 56.24%
CAUCASIAN 580 33.26% 898 41.98%
HISPANIC 33 2.01% 18 .85%
NATIVE AMERICAN 12 .73% 4 .19%
ASIAN 2 .12% 0 0.00%
OTHER/UNKNOWN 15 .91% 16 .74%
_______________________________________________________________________
TOTAL 1645 98.00% 2139 100.00%
It would be reasonable at this point for someone to argue that there would be a disparity in the Indefinite Sentence release figures due to the nature of the crimes for which some of these men were convicted. This could conceivably be true except for two things. One is the law of averages. Even though the prisoners under harsher sentences would possibly serve more time they would eventually be released contributing to the exit ratios for their particular ethnic group. The time span covered by our data would allow for this and we should still see the same basic intake to exit ethnic ratios. We do not. Secondly, is the existence of a provable ethnic quota system which has been established by the Parole Board. Since full data is available only for the years 1992 through 1996 this is the only data utilized. As has been stated earlier, the Parole Board took measures to insure it's existence and provide itself with work while the new codes were being formulated. This is evident by the steady drop in the parole release rate shown in Appendix Item Three. While the number of prisoners eligible for parole steadily increased the percentage of prisoners paroled dropped severely. This resulted in the present dramatic overcrowding of Ohio prisons. But since the Parole Board's main claim to existence is the prisoners under Indefinite Sentences they had to make sure that there would be an adequate supply into the foreseeable future. Since Senate Bill Two is based on Definite Sentences and almost all new prisoners would fall under the Definite terms of imprisonment the men with "Tails" or Indefinite Sentences had to be preserved for as long a period as possible.
AFRICAN-AMERlCAN MEN PAROLED
1992 1993 1994 1995 1996
JANUARY 20 18 18 24 16 FEBRUARY 18 29 11 18 25
MARCH 18 8 16 13 10
APRIL 23 13 25 12 11
MAY 17 14 17 18 22
JUNE 12 21 10 8 12
JULY 18 12 22 14 12
AUGUST 26 10 13 16 14
SEPTEMBER 22 14 13 14 12
OCTOBER 20 17 11 12 17
NOVEMBER 22 16 12 19 11
DECEMBER 18 15 17 16 23
_______________________________________________________________________
TOTAL 234 187 185 184 185
Note the chart above and you will see that the year before the Sentencing Commission report was due, 1992, our sample institution had 234 Black males released. Keep in mind Appendix Item Three's outlining of the drop in parole rates. It can be safely assumed that this 234 releases was substantially below the number released in 1990 and lower than the number released in 1991. Now note the figures for 1993 through 1996. With only slight deviations which can be attributed to poor record keeping the number of Black men released stays at 185 persons in the presence of ever increasing prison populations. This can not be attributed to chance. It can only be viewed for what it is, a planned release quota to extend the length of time men under Indefinite Sentences is available. It will be noted that the Whites are not shown. This is due to the fact that there is for them there is a flexible quota system that is possibly based on intake rations adjusted quarterly.
As already noted the White release rate is 7.93% below the intake percentages. Accurate intake ratio figures for our test institution were not available but the severe fluctuations noted in the monthly parole releases for Whites indicate that there is a system. Tt appears that in this age of "political correctness" there is a "pool" of White prisoners being formed to balance the various institutions' racial mixes. This could be particularly useful considering under the provisions of Senate Bill Two what comes in the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction is stuck with. It will only be through the presence of a "pool" of White Indefinite Sentence prisoners that they will be able to adjust their prison's racial mixes and boast of their percentages as is done now. The statewide intake ratios of 56.8% Black and 43.19% White does not reflect local Conditions. Those incarcerated in the North East, Central and South West portions of Ohio are predominantly Black while those from the rest of the state are predominantly White. The DR&C policy of housing prisoners near their homes will cause institutions to be racially weighted to either Black or White depending upon the location of the institution under the new Definite Sentence Statutes. This can easily be adjusted by drawing from this "pool" of Indefinite Sentence prisoners who are being held well beyond their court-appointed minimums. All Indefinite Sentence prisoners will eventually become pawns that are shuffled to suit the politically correct needs of the DR&C with the help of the Parole Board.
Although some of these statements are based upon conjecture using an overall view of the prison system in Ohio as it now exists and will be affected by Senate Bill Two, numerous facts do exist. As evidenced by appendix Item Four: Excerpts from the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction Reports for 1994, 1995, and 1996, there is an average of 19,414 prisoners brought into Ohio's prisons each year. Of these 56.8% are Black and 43.19% are White. Appendix Item Six shows that those with Definite Sentences leave imprisonment in basically the same ratio racially as when they came into the system. Appendix Item Three shows the dramatic reduction in the number of prisoners released on parole since the beginning of the formulation of the new sentencing codes. This percentage dropped from 42.7% to 23.9% in just five years. Tentative 1996 figures based upon our test institution indicate this release rate is still dropping and may be as low as 21.35% for 1996. The Department of Rehabilitation and Correction begs for more money for more prisons while it's subsidiary agency, the Adult Parole Authority, artificially inflates prison populations to protect their jobs' longevity. Appendix Item Seven shows the disparity between the racial intake figures of Appendix Item Four and the racial parole release figures with 4.17% MORE Blacks being released and 7.93% LESS Whites being released than came into the system. The chart on African American men released on parole, shows that there is a fixed quota established for releases by the Parole Board disregarding how many may actually be qualified for release. The White quota is much more difficult to document though the 7.93% FEWER White releases indicates the building of a "White Pool" by the Parole Board for "Politically Correct" purposes disregarding how many may actually be qualified for release.
The foregoing evidence clearly indicates that the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction and the Adult Parole Authority has completely discarded it's published purpose and guidelines and is operating in a manner which is cruel and clearly discriminatory in order to protect it's longevity and thusly, it's retirement checks. The deliberate reduction in the number of releases, completely disregarding judicial expectations and the best interest of the citizens, show that their intent is not to be fair or just but to survive at the expense of others. The racial release quotas indicate an agenda that does not include justice or impartiality but is designed to keep the "Politically Correct" program in place regardless of how many lives are ruined. The American Judicial and Criminal Justice System was founded upon three basic principles; Truth, Justice and Equality for ALL citizens. It is evident from the figures and facts that the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction and the Adult Parole Authority feel these principles are expendable if they interfere with their plans for retirement. (
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