MINE FIELD AHEAD:
Time to Standardize
County Parole Conditions
You’ve been released from jail and have met with your parole officer. He has given you a long list of conditions that will include where you can go and with whom you can meet. He has given you a list of fines that you have to pay for required drug tests, administration fees, user fees, and of course a monthly charge for an ankle bracelet, if required.
The list seems endless for many, and due to the panoply of conditions, at least one in ten people on parole are sent back to jail on technical violations, increasing taxpayer costs, and short-sheeting the reentry process. The Marshall project that studied this issue found that, “Parole boards send too many people to prison for petty violations, and hold them there for too long. Probation and parole—originally designed as an alternative to incarceration—have instead become a significant contributor to mass incarceration.”
In the 92 counties in Indiana there are 92 sets of probation conditions, and one infraction may be enough for a person who has fulfilled their sentence to be sent back to jail. While many states—Kansas, Kentucky, and Maine—to name just a few, have one set of parole conditions.
Here are some Indiana county examples:
In Allen County, under Drug & Alcohol Testing, “You are subject to field contacts and shall submit to a search and random drug testing at your expense, upon demand of any probation officer, law enforcement officer or community corrections officer.”
In Lake County, same subject, there is nothing.
In Porter County, under Probation Fees: “In addition to other conditions of Probation, all individuals on Probation shall pay an Administration Fee, an Initial User Fee, and a Monthly User Fee. Probation User Fees: Felony Administration Fee of $100.00; Felony Initial User Fee of $25.00-100.00; Felony Monthly User Fee of $15.00-$30.00; Misdemeanor Administration Fee of $50.00; Misdemeanor Initial User Fee of $50.00; Misdemeanor Monthly User Fee of $10.00-$20.00.”
In Monroe County, under Probation Fees, there is nothing. Note: that the inability to pay this panoply of charges may also send them back into incarceration—usually, they don’t have the money because they haven’t been able to get a job.
In Porter County, under Association: "Former inmates of Penal Institutions and individuals of bad reputation shall be avoided. I shall not associate with anyone who is likely to influence me to commit any crime." Yet in Allen County and Monroe, there are no such stipulations. Rules about with whom a reentrant can associate are tricky and have caused untold problems for many. A person’s only place to live may be with a family member who has been in jail, or when finding employment (required by another set of parole conditions) they may find other employees at their place of work who have a criminal background. Either situation could send him or her back to incarceration.
The list goes on.
With about 12,000 people on the parole files across Indiana, we need to present a clear and able path through this maze of probation land mines so they can make it out into the light of opportunity. We are operating under a very messy, disorganized system of parole rules that affect lives every day.
Probation should not make it harder to succeed,
Nancy
