MALVERN — Reversing its previous position, the Arkansas Board of Parole has decided that it will not seek legislation next year to expand its authority to deny parole to more offenders, the board’s chairman said Monday.
Instead, Chairman John Felts said the board will answer questions from lawmakers as they consider different options. He said the board didn’t take a vote on the matter but came to an informal consensus “within the last week.”
“We’ve just had so many different proposals come our way, we just felt like the best thing to do was to remain neutral about it,” Felts said.
Felts spoke to legislators about the board’s authority Monday at a meeting of the state House and Senate judiciary committees and the Legislative Council’s Charitable, Penal and Correctional Institutions Subcommittee.
The legislators met at the Ouachita River Unit in Malvern, then toured the prison as well as the nearby Omega Technical Violator Center, a lockup that houses parole violators.
Proposals to increase the Parole Board’s authority were prompted by the release this year of David Kent Pierce, a former music minister at First Baptist Church in Benton who admitted to sexual misconduct with members of the church’s youth choir.
Felts said the board would have preferred to deny parole to Pierce, who had served less than three years of a 10-year sentence for sexual indecency with a child, but didn’t have the authority to do that.
A state law, passed in 1993 as part of a corrections overhaul, took away the Parole Board’s discretion to deny parole to inmates except those serving time for certain offenses, such as murder and rape.
Inmates convicted of other crimes, including first- and second-degree sexual assault, were later added to the list of those over which the board has discretion to deny parole. However, the board does not have discretion to deny parole to inmates convicted of several other violent and sex-related offenses, including sexual indecency with a child.
In cases where the board does not have discretion, it can delay an inmate’s release for up to about a year by requiring an inmate to complete a program, such as vocational training or a substance abuse program. Once the program has been completed, the inmate must be released.
Earlier this year, Felts said the board planned to seek the authority to deny parole to an inmate convicted of any offense that requires registration as a sex offender, as well as violent offenses such as committing a terroristic act.
During this year’s fiscal legislative session, a resolution that would have allowed the Legislature to consider a bill on the matter passed in the Senate but died in the House at the end of the session.
At a meeting earlier this month, a legislative task force on abused and neglected children recommended that judiciary committees consider legislation that would allow the board to deny parole to inmates convicted of sexual indecency with a child, Sen. Percy Malone, a co-chairman of the task force, said Monday.
He said the task force also recommended that the committees study the possibility of giving the board the authority to deny parole to inmates serving time for other sex offenses.
Legislators will have to consider how many inmates would be affected and the cost of keeping them locked up longer, Malone said.
“Whenever we’re passing legislation, you’ve got to say, what’s the economic impact?” Malone said.
State Rep. Darrin Williams, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said he’s “open to talking about” proposals to increase the Parole Board’s authority, but wants to make sure any changes are “consistent with the goals of Act 570,” the corrections overhaul legislation passed by the legislature last year.
The law, which lessened the penalties for several theft and drug-related crimes and mandated the use of a range of punishments for parole violators, has been credited with helping bring about a drop in the state’s prison population, from 16,400 in November 2010 to less than 15,000 as of last month.
Arkansas Code 12-12-905 requires an inmate convicted of any of more than two dozen crimes to register as a sex offender. Sen. Jim Luker, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Monday that it wouldn’t be practical to give the board discretion over any sex offender.
“If it’s thought through and narrowly focused, there are probably some measures that should be taken, but some of the proposals that were made before were way too broad,” Luker said.
Arkansas, Pages 7 on 09/25/2012