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Louisiana Misuses Risk Prediction Tools To Deny Inmates Even Consideration for Parole. [1]
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Date: 2025-04-11
First, a bit of background.
I worked as a parole officer in the Canadian prison system for twenty eight years. I worked inside the prison. My job was multi-faceted. It included initial assessments of offenders, designing what we called Correctional Plans, recommending programs, recommending security level and penitentiary placement, providing counseling to inmates, and making recommendations for parole. And every part of my job included the use of risk prediction tools.
They came with a variety of names — the SIR, the Static-99, the HCR-20, the SARA. Some tools focused on general recidivism, some on violent recidivism, some on risk for spousal violence, and some for sexual recidivism. One tool for sexual recidivism that we briefly used was rather unfortunately called the RRASOR (Rapid Risk Assessment for Sexual Recidivism). Some were primarily based on static factors — that is things that don’t change, such as the inmates age, number of prior convictions, age at first conviction. Others were based more on dynamic factors — that is, things that can change, for example mental health, drug abuse, the presence of criminal attitudes, and community support.
These risk prediction tools provided guidance, but were not the sole basis for any recommendation. What they were primarily used for was to ensure that inmates were placed into the most appropriate treatment in the institution and at the appropriate level of supervision in the community (for example, do they need to reside in a halfway house, do they need to take maintenance programs, how often do they need to report to their Parole Officer). Inmates assessed as higher risk needed to attend high intensity programs (these programs were longer, provided more information), those at moderate risk in moderate programs and lower risk offenders sometimes didn’t require formal treatment at all or would attend volunteer programs offered through the chapel, through Indigenous Initiatives, or through psychology.
Today, Pro-Publica released a report on changes in the way Louisiana grants parole. For inmates sentenced after 2024, parole has basically been eliminated. For those sentenced before 2024, the Louisiana legislature used a backdoor method, that is relying solely on the score on one risk prediction tool, in order to basically deny them the opportunity to be heard for parole consideration.
The link to the report is here.
www.propublica.org/…
An Algorithm Deemed This Nearly Blind 70-Year-Old Prisoner a “Moderate Risk.” Now He’s No Longer Eligible for Parole.
It tells the story of Calvin Alexander, a seventy year old prisoner midway through a twenty year sentence for drug charges. He had done everything right during his incarceration. He attended programs for drug abuse, he learned a trade, his institutional behaviour was positive. However the new laws instituted in 2024 means he is no longer even able to apply for parole.
What Louisiana is doing is using a risk prediction tool called TIGER (Targeted Interventions to Greater Enhance Re-Entry) to determine eligibility for parole. A quick review of the tool shows obvious bias — for example Black men are more likely than others to be convicted of drug crimes, to be given longer sentences, and to struggle with employment. Another concern is that the question regarding revocations is not restricted by date. For example, an individual who violated parole conditions a year ago is a much high risk to violate conditions again than someone whose last revocation was twenty years ago.
The new law says that anyone who scores moderate or high risk on the tool is ineligible for consideration for early release. Given that Black men are significantly over represented in Louisiana’s prison system (as are Indigenous men and women in the Canadian prison system), and given the bias in the tool itself, what the law does is make it virtually impossible for Black men to earn early release. It is the embodiment of institutional racism.
In the case of Calvin Alexander, he is a man who cannot read or write, who took to drug trafficking to provide for his family and then, as often happens, developed an addiction to the drug he sold. He admitted to having lived a reckless lifestyle in his youth including a parole revocation from 1994.
As parole officers, when changes were made we often discussed them on the basis of whether they contributed to “good corrections”. What we meant by good corrections is policies that provide appropriate interventions for inmates at the appropriate time in their sentence, that provided in depth analysis of the changes an offender made, or whether they had made any changes at all, and ultimately whether it contributed to the safety of society. This Louisiana law does none of these things.
Parole contributes to the safety of society. Releasing an inmate with no supports, no interventions, and no plan, which is what happens when an offender is released at the end of their sentence, increases the risk of recidivism. Studies have shown that a supervised release — in which parolees report to a parole officer, are helped to find employment, are helped to find an appropriate home, are helped to connect to community supports — is most likely to lead to success.
What Louisiana has done with these laws is to keep men in jail longer than they need to be (a very expensive choice), and ultimately to increase the risk that they recidivate when they finally do get out.
From what I learned of Calvin Alexander, were he on my caseload I would have referred him to educational upgrading and drug treatment. His use of drugs in jail would be monitored to ensure he is keeping clean. We would have worked with family members and others in the community to provide supports on release. I would have taken into consideration risk prediction tools, looked at what he accomplished, looked at what changes he made, looked at his understanding of his crime cycle, and likely recommended him for parole.
In fact, based on the information provided in the ProPublica report, were he on my caseload, he would have been safely released to the community a long time ago.
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