Eliminating ‘max-outs’ can reduce incarceration costs

Through the smarter use of parole, Illinois may be able to cut millions from its prison budget.

Increased length of prison sentences and truth-in-sentencing movements have contributed to the rise of offenders residing in Illinois’ prisons “maxing-out” of their sentences. Maxing-out occurs when an offender completes his or her full sentence in prison and is discharged from the system without any form of post-incarceration supervision. Research shows that former inmates released without supervision are more likely to struggle, often returning to prison later on – at taxpayers’ expense.

According to the Illinois Department of Corrections, or IDOC, in 2014, 4,477 inmates exited Illinois prisons without going on parole. This number includes people who previously had been on parole, but were readmitted to prison for violating parole conditions. Such readmissions don’t necessarily mean that the offenders committed new crimes; many offenders return to prison for technical parole violations, such as failure to secure housing consistent with their parole requirements.

Once a prisoner has served his or her full sentence, it’s unconstitutional to subject that person to additional supervision. However, Illinois can offer an alternative to inmates approaching the end of their sentences, which can save money and may improve outcomes.

For example, when inmates have six months left before being released, the state can give them the choice of serving those six months in prison, or of serving a full year on parole. Because this option doubles the inmates’ time under supervision, inmates will have to carefully consider whether they wish to accept such offers. This encourages positive self-selection: Inmates who believe they can complete the parole period without violations are more likely to accept these offers. This would increase the safety and success of the parole program.

In fact, according to IDOC, if the 4,477 inmates directly released last year had spent a full 12 months out on parole instead of six of those months in prison, the state could have saved up to $40 million in incarceration costs.

To make parole work, it’s important that savings from policy changes be directed toward improving available parole options. Technical violations and misdemeanor violations should be punished by graduated sanctions instead of by immediate revocation. Graduated sanctions provide a parole officer with multiple tools to deal with violations immediately, instead of always having to resort to revocation proceedings with their attendant delays.

Parole violation sanctions could start small, with the imposition of a curfew or community service requirement, for example. Sanctions could increase in severity based on the number and seriousness of infractions. House arrest, increased substance-abuse testing and weekend detention in a facility are further examples of sanctions that are less severe than outright revocation and that would strengthen the probation and parole systems without requiring re-incarceration.

Making parole more effective and increasing participation in the parole system could help reduce the likelihood of ex-offenders falling back into crime. But policy changes like these don’t only enable rehabilitation; they can save the state millions of dollars every year.