THE WISCONSIN PAROLE BOARD IS
PROFITING FROM CRIME
By Marvin Wilson 297343 ; NLCI PO Box 4000; New Lisbon, WI 53950
The
majority of Wisconsin's 22,000 prisoners are not parole eligible. Only about
2,700 are old law prisoners. And there are only 6
parole board members that deals with them. So by continuously deferring
old law prisoners 4, 6, 10, or even 20 years past 25% of their sentence, the
parole board members are giving themselves job security. In my
case, by giving me a 24 month defer, parole board member Emily Davidson, gave
herself (or one of her colleagues that I may have to see) 2 years of job security
Like most old law prisoners that I
know, I'm not a troublemaker. For one I'm innocent and not supposed to be
in prison in the first place. Yet I've still completed programs that challenge
the mind and provoke thought - i.e. CGIP, Anger
Management, Rational Emotive Therapy, Self-Help of Wisconsin, Challenges and
Possibilities and Restorative Justice. I was in the B.R.I.C.K. program
mentoring troubled youth that was brought into the prison. Kind
of like a Scared Straight program. I've had, what is called, good jobs where
I had a lot of responsibility and staff believed
in me. In the main kitchen in GBCI, I was responsible for
ordering all the meat for the institutions meals for 1,200 people each day for a
year and a half. I worked in maintenance
hydro-testing fire-extinguishers. This is a hard and dangerous job that I
learned on my own by reading the manual. Now you have to be
certified to hydro-test. I handmade filters for the prison's
ventilation systems. There were more jobs. My point is, the people that I
worked for gave me a chance and I rose above the
nay-sayers expectations. So why wont the parole board give me (us old law prisoners)
a chance so I (we) can rise?
I believe the parole board is
profiting from crime. They keep people in prison, not for the alleged crime or
because it wasn't sufficient time served for punishment but for money. They get
a nice salary simply from deferring release.
Kathleen
Nagel $37.78 an hr. $78,580 a year
Steven
Lundreman$28.47 an
hr. $60,356 a year
Danialle
LaCost $25.20 an hr. $53,428 a year
Doug
Drankiewicz $28.95 an hr. $61,370 a year
William
Francis $28.70 an hr. $57,391 a year
Emily
Davidson $23.93 an hr. $59,540 a year
These numbers are from 2013. 4nd they get this
yearly and is able to maintain a middleclass life style on the basis of denying parole. In 2005 1,146 people
were let out on parole. By 2013 it went to only 152. This is the thing, the
parole commission, and those that profit from crime, seen that it was only
about 3000 old parole law prisoners
left in the system, and if they continued to parole by the thousands, they would be out of a job. So they stopped parole based
on non-existing factors. Remember, it was only about 2,700 parole law prisoners. If these 2,700 were paroled today,
these 6 parole board members will have
to find new employment to maintain their middleclass life style.
The matter is not about the crimes or the alleged crimes committed. I
believe crime must be punished. But what this Wisconsin parole board is doing is denying parole to keep
a good salary. Because it's not like they are denying parole because these guys are the same as they were
when they first got to prison. They have grown, matured and are not who they were 15, 20 or 30 years
ago. So holding them is not about punishment anymore. It is to keep the 2,700 parole eligible
prisoners in prison just so the 6 parole board members can have good paying jobs.
So is it about punishment, corrections or profits? The crime was
punished by sending the person to prison. And sufficient time served for punishment was when they met 25%
of their sentence. always sufficient time served for punishment only until
the number of parole eligible prisoners started getting low. Some people took pleas with hopes of getting
out at the 25% mark. But the parole board has a different standard after these pleas were taken.
Most of these guys are not troublemakers, have a decent prison record, have supportive families, are remorseful,
want to help the communities they once hurt - they have made corrections in their lives. But yet
and still the parole board keeps deferring their release. If the above is true, then the parole board has
no real reason to deny parole other than they are profiting from the punishment i.e. making a livelihood by
keeping changed people in prison only because their sentences was long but they could have been
out at 25% had the parole board member not be profiting from crime. The public has to demand a
change.
