How Legal Is Admin Parole...

How Legal is Administrative Parole?

In Oklahoma, part C of Title 57 OSS 332.7 went into effect Nov. 1, 2018 and last month, the first Administrative Parole docket was conducted. Based on the wording of Title 57 OSS 332.7, I contend the Administrative Parole Docket is not following the law, and therefore is not legal.

The wording in part C clearly states that administrative parole is "for a crime committed on or after November 1, 2018" by persons in the custody of the Department of Corrections (DOC) who have served ¼ of their sentence. No inmate on the March 2019 Administrative Parole Docket committed their offense on or after Nov. 1, 2018. There have never been statutes pertaining to Administrative Parole prior to Nov. 1, 2018, so how can it be legal for any inmate regardless of when the crime occurred?

All inmates received by the DOC must be considered for parole at some point in their incarceration unless they are serving a sentence of LWOP or death. Any parole consideration is set by statute. As a matter of fact, one of the first things done upon an inmate's arrival in the DOC is the calculation of a first parole docket, based on the inmates’ circumstances. Docket dates have to be set according to the law on the books at the time of sentencing.

Oklahoma has tried to arbitrarily reduce the inmate population many, many times in the past. In the 1990's, one district attorney threatened to sue DOC for the Specialized Supervision Parole (SSP) program that allowed DOC to pick and choose who was released to supervision without any other court or agency involvement. SSP release was discontinued.

I believe the current philosophy is to save money by creating bed space instead of public safety. I also believe that if all of us work together to ensure the law is correctly applied, we may be able to mitigate any future unlawful early parole and possible victims of criminals who should be lawfully serving their sentences.