The Arkansas Board of Corrections announced new policies Friday to improve the monitoring and disciplining of parolees accused of new crimes or parole violations.
The six mandates - which come in the aftermath of the agency’s handling of an eight-time absconder recently charged with capital murder - range from better documentation of requests or denials for revocation hearings to requiring automatic revocation hearings for parolees who accrue new felony charges.
Along with new policies, the Board of Corrections told of an “extensive investigation” into the case of Darrell Dennis, who, despite at least 14 arrests and multiple felony charges and parole violations, never saw a revocation hearing until after his May 22 arrest in the kidnapping, robbery and murder of 18-yearold Forrest Abrams on May 10 in Little Rock.
B enny Magness, the board’s chairman, said the board’s investigation began only days after Dennis’ arrest by Little Rock homicide detectives and before investigations initiated by the governor’s office as well as state police earlier this week.
“We’ve done these [investigations],” Magness said. “But not to this extent. This will the most extensive investigation I’ve seen in my 15 years [with the Board].”
Word of the investigation, and the new orders for Department of Community Correction administrators and case officers, come days after Gov. Mike Beebe met with agency Director David Eberhard to discuss the Dennis case after reading an Arkansas Democrat-Gazette article Monday morning.
Beebe’s review, like Magness’ investigation, will not only examine the Dennis case but also will look for similar instances of parolees who re-offended, and look for systemic problems and better policy and procedures.
The governor’s own review is still ongoing and continues to evaluate possible failures at both the personnel and policy levels with the state’s parole agency, said Matt DeCample, the governor’s spokesman.
“Obviously what you see here is an attempt to address some gaps at a systemic level … or some actions they think will help at a systemic level,” DeCample said. “If there were some of those procedures that the board feels need to be double-underlined or clarified or both … they stepped up and took their own action.”
Several legislators have indicated interest in committee reviews of both the Dennis case as well as similar cases handled by the Department of Community Correction. On Wednesday, the Arkansas State Police began a “rare” administrative investigation into the agency, according to state police officials.
A call to the Community Correction Department’s director, Eberhard, to discuss the new policy mandates and how they would be carried out was not returned Friday.
Responding to several questions by e-mail, Department of Community Correction spokesman Rhonda Sharp wrote: “The DCC will follow the will of the Board and will immediately put into place the new policies. These policies strengthen DCC procedures and will result in better supervision of offenders. The DCC has no other comment on this issue.”
Republican Little Rock state Sen. David Sanders, who has been vocal in his criticism of the parole system’s actions in the Dennis case, said he and others are encouraged by the Board of Corrections’ edicts.
“It’s a wholesale acknowledgement by the [Board of Corrections] … that things haven’t been working,” Sanders said.
“This is the first acknowledgement that I can remember from [the] Board of Corrections that parole isn’t functioning as it should.”
One of the new mandates states that parolees charged with new felonies “will be jailed and a revocation hearing will be sought.”
Dennis racked up at least 10 felonies between two separate Little Rock drug raids in 2009 and 2010 and, despite being scheduled for a revocation hearing at one point, he never had one.
In past interviews, Sharp said that nonviolent felonies were in a gray area that gave parole officers and their supervisors discretion about whether to seek a revocation hearing or to try alternative sanctions to correct a parolee’s behavior.
Another mandate states that “DCC will prioritize and fast track the admission of higher risk offenders into the Technical Violator Program,” one that can send parolees to a “technical violator’s center” for 60 days to 90 days insteadof sending them back to prison.
After a May 1 arrest and hold on his seventh absconder warrant, Dennis was told he would be sent to a violator’s center and to report back within 24 hours after his May 8 release. According to records, he never met the parole officer and never made it to a violator’s center.
“In the circumstances we find ourselves in … we find we need to tighten our ship up … [a parolee facing a new felony charge] is going to get a hearing now,” Magness said. “Officers and sheriffs [have] called and said, ‘This guy’s a problem in our jail. Can you get him out?’ There was a system to look at some [high-risk offenders], but it wasn’t looked at at a regular basis by staff in the central office.”
In another mandate, the Board ordered Department of Correction staff to add any requests for revocation hearings, and subsequent denials, to the parolee’s file.
When asked why that wasn’t common practice before, Magness said it was common but not uniform.
“Some of those [requests] may have been done by e-mails … some people can delete them or not delete them, but once [a request] is in the [state] system, it’s in the system,” Magness said. “E-mails are a great tool … but they’re going to have to enter it into the system.”
Another of the board’s policy mandates states that any parolee cited with a second absconder warrant will be locked up and appear at a revocation hearing.
Prior to the new directive, it took three absconder offenses to prompt a revocation hearing, according to the agency’s “accountability interventions matrix.”
Dennis accrued eight such absconder arrests, as well as a capital murder charge, before his parole was revoked on June 5.
On Thursday, the legislature’s Joint Performance Review Committee sent a letter to Eberhard requesting all records and correspondence documenting Dennis’ case.
The committee is scheduled to meet on July 11, when members will “hear reports and testimony concerning the state’s current parole procedures and system and it is anticipated the Committee will also specifically discuss the recent [Abrams] homicide case,” the letter stated.
Committee co-chairman Rep. Terry Rice, R-Waldron, said the informational hearing is necessary to fix what he called obvious shortcomings in the state’s parole system.
“There is definitely something lacking. We need to find where it is, what tools they have, what tools are needed. It could require further legislation, further funding, better communications between agencies. It’s got to be more effective than it is,” Waldron said. “We all know in government agencies, not everything is perfect. … It’s sad you have to have [a capital murder arrest] before you can figure out what needs to be done.”
Sanders, who sits on the Joint Performance Review Committee, said he looks forward to settling facts and getting to the heart of what happened with Dennis.
“What has historically happened in Arkansas when there has been a problem with a parolee, mainly the DCC has pointed the finger at other state agencies, be it prosecutors, sheriffs, be it the parole board,” Sanders said. “I think now we have to accept responsibility. … I think all entities, especially the DCC, have to accept responsibility for their actions or inactions.”
Such finger-pointing came across some media reports earlier this week when Sharp told a TV reporter that the Pulaski County jail was partially to blame for Dennis’ May 8 release.
Parole officials were waiting for space to open up at a violator’s center for Dennis, according to Sharp, who said the jail staff called Department of Community Correction officials and asked them to release the hold they had placed on Dennis.
After the agency’s assistant area manager, Shawanna Willis, faxed the jail a letter authorizing his release, Dennis was let go.
“It appears the DCC is bearing the brunt of criticism regarding the Dennis situation,” Sharp wrote in an e-mail. “We are being criticized, in part, for actions over which we have no authority. We are but one component of a complex system.”
Pulaski County Sheriff Doc Holladay takes exception to Sharp’s assessment.
Holladay said his jail shares a good working relationship with parole and corrections officials and that he is happy to house inmates waiting for hearings or transfers back to prison, but he is less than pleased to be blamed for doing what he’s told.
“The idea that we could have called and told the Department of [Community] Correction to release their [parole] hold is inaccurate,” Holladay said. “I think they’re trying to make a scapegoat out of us, and I’m not going to allow them to do that.”
Holladay said Sharp or other parole officials might be confused by calls the jail staff routinely makes to agencies to remind them they are holding someone on their behalf and asking whether there is an update. Holladay emphasized his staff does not dictate when a parolee is to be released.
When the jail takes in a parolee on a hold from the Department of Community Correction, they’re usually there a week, according to sheriff’s office officials, who said that as late as six months ago, that average was closer to 30 or 40 days.
On May 8, the jail held half a dozen other parolees for the Community Correction Department as well as 1,150 other inmates in the 1,210 bed capacity facility.
“The parole office, quite often, puts someone in here on a parole hold in order to get their attention … a wake-up call, which is fine,” Holladay said. “But if they are going to do that, they still need to have a [revocation hearing]. … This idea of just putting them in jail without any real intention of following through to determine if they are revocable … isn’t accomplishing what I believe their intended purpose is.”
Two of the mandates the Board of Corrections announced Friday said that Department of Community Correction officials will not release parole holds if asked by jails and that agency staff is responsible for finding open jail space for parolees across jurisdictions.
Magness said the board’s investigation will get to the bottom of the back-and-forth between Sharp and Holladay.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 06/22/2013