Contracts

What is parole? I want to be pedantic for a moment. Parole is a transferred concept from the prisoner of war lexicon. A prisoner of war is asked to give his parole, or acknowledgement of his status as a prisoner and his promise to abide by rules for a certain period or purpose. So while a prisoner is obligated to try to escape, he may give his parole in order to work in a hospital or to work to build a levee during a flood, or to stay with civilians and care for them as the battle rages around. today, we have twisted that to say that a prisoner is given parole by the Corrections bureaucracy, and he must report to a parole officer. This is a modern concept, not a chivalrous one. Knights sold their captives into slavery. The Western Europeans began considering parole after the turn of the twentieth century. But it was a trade off. I give you my parole, and I get the freedom or some of it, that I want. I can even be repatriated if I promise not to re engage against you.

Let's get back to prisoners in and of NYS. A prisoner is offered early release if the parole board believes his promises to obey the laws he did not obey before and if he agrees to supervision by the parole officer. But because NYDOCs has institutionalized this process (if you have custody of 70,000 prisoners, you end up institutionalizing as much as possible) that concept of promising has been obscured. The prisoners focus on convincing the parole board to "let me go," and the DOCs employees concentrate on keeping the parolees in their control. Both forget that there is a promise in there, and that the prisoner is honor bound to comply. The parole officer doesn't trust and the parolee resists control. Lose/lose.

In New York's efforts to reduce cost (and other states too, I am sure) the principles of bringing the prisoners into a state of education and a state of honor  have been dropped, if ever they were in play. programs such as Cephas and Spiritus Christie, along with activities such as Veteran's dorms and programs, and Crusaders, and even religious programs, all try to offer the prisoner opportunity to grow, to mature, to change from criminal to citizen, each program in its own way, using its own perspective on citizenship. but the prison system does not, in my opinion have any of that on its actual agenda, regardless of Mission and Vision statements. The one point of contact, the parole hearing, is a dance of preconceived notions; it may never be able to truly judge whether the promise of good behavior is real. And out on the streets, the prole office is the enemy, looking to violate the prisoner, not help him live up to his promise.