Opinion: State should extend compassionate parole
Connecticut suffers from prison overcrowding, high deaths in prison, and high costs of medical treatment as the incarcerated population continues to grow – inmate health care alone costs taxpayers $100,000 dollars a year. Medical ethicists claim that prisons cannot provide the patient-centered care that is needed to keep critically ill patients alive.
SB 460, an act relating to compassionate or medical parole and the credits given for release during an emergency declaration, is a step towards addressing this financial and ethical problem. Compassionate release, or the shortening of a prisoner’s sentence when circumstances such as significant illness or good conduct reduce the need for continued imprisonment, is economically beneficial, does not endanger civil safety, and is morally imperative.
The Bill will provide necessary opportunities to prisoners seeking compassionate release by assuring investigation of each case by a release panel, broadening the eligibility criteria for relief and establishing protocols in times of emergency. Medical parole, especially during a crisis, is essential to ensure that prisoners are not placed at high risk to their health when they themselves pose little risk to society.
Primarily, compassionate release will reduce the cost on taxpayers. The lack of comprehensive compassionate release procedures directly raises the average age in prisons – by 2030, inmates over the age of 55 will make up a third of the Connecticut prison population. As age increases, so does the cost of medical care. Releasing older, medically compromised prisoners would be less expensive and would prevent prison overcrowding.
SB 460 achieves this goal by replacing the previous language by stating that prisoners will be granted release when there is “no danger to society” but “significantly less risk to society”. This reduces the burden of proof required for prisoners to prove they are dangerous, yet requires inmates to express significantly less community risk.
It is important to note that this poses no threat to the citizens of Connecticut. A Justice Department review found that prisoners released from compassionate parole have a recurrence rate of 3.1 percent, compared to 30 percent of prisoners released on term. A three-person panel, as stated in SB 460, will assess individual cases for social hazard, providing an additional layer of protection. Typically, medically infirm prisoners will not have the physical ability to attack again.
Most fundamentally, this new approach to risk assessment in times of emergency could save lives. The executive director of the Connecticut Board of Pardons and Paroles said the current compassionate release “did not create statutory norms to handle this type of virus.” We must allow inmates to survive the higher rates of COVID-19 within prisons than in the rest of Connecticut. Unnecessarily putting prisoners at risk denies their humanity and right to life.
Less restrictive requirements for compassionate release exist in many other states. Vermont allows release if a medical condition renders the prisoner “not likely to be physically capable of presenting a danger to society.” Utah directly enforces the “significantly low risk” standard by referring to reducing recycling rates. Recently, New Jersey enacted a bill in light of the COVID-19 pandemic that allowed people with less than a year to be released eight months earlier.
The Connecticut legislature is moving in the right direction. In 2021, the Senate likewise voted to expand eligibility for compassionate parole. However, the bill was not voted on by the House. In this session, the Connecticut General Assembly has the opportunity to truly save lives and correct the flaws in the cancer system by passing SB 460. There’s no time to waste.
Meridian Manthy is a student at Yale University.
