"An Austin federal jury in Thursday found that two top state parole officials violated the constitutional rights of an ex-convict who was denied a required hearing for 576 days. Jurors also held the Board of Pardons and Paroles [BPP] Chairman Rissie Owens liable for $21,250 in damages and awarded Curtis Ray Graham attorney's fees that are expected to top $100,000. ... Graham sued the parole board after he was classified as a sex offender even though he was never convicted of a sex crime. ... It is rare for ex-convicts in Texas to win such challenges in state or federal courts. It is almost unheard for parole officials to be held liable for official omissions. ... At a time when several similar lawsuits are pending against state parole officials, attorneys have argued that a win by Graham could force new hearings in perhaps thousands of parole cases in which offenders were classifed as sex offenders without proper hearings", my emphasis, Mike Ward at the Austin American-Statesman, 9 October 2009, link:
Good news. The BPP is one of our most incompetent and corrupt state agencies. I believe it denies prisoners parole to increase corrections officers' jobs. It keeps thousands of "trustys", i.e., inmates with good records who can leave prisons unescorted, to have them work for free. This is the BPP's reward for good prison conduct. In 1996 "mandatory supervision" (MS) was made "discretionary". The legislature was told Texas would need 1,199 more prison beds after five years to incarcerate "the worst of the worst". The BPP reviews about 17,000 inmates annually for MS. If 1,199 would be denied MS after five years, that's 1.4% (1,199 / (17,000 X 5)). The BPP released 49.97% of inmates on DMS last year, not 98.6%. DMS is a fraud. What else is new? Why shouldn't the BPP fix erronerous records? If an inmate was never convicted of a sex crime, why is he so classified? The BPP has been captured by the "Prison-Industrial Complex", my 1 September 2008 post:
1 comment:
Although unpleasant it is refreshing to have the dirty linen of the system exposed...
All systems can become corrupt... a little "capture" here and a little "capture" there and soon the institution stops functioning as it was intended...
"Prison-Industrial Complex" that sounds like a prison "guild".
We are going to run out of tax dollars to support the "Prison-Industrial Complex" and do the other things we need to do... uhm...
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