Mr. Richard A. Lanham, Sr.
Commissioner of Correction
Maryland Division of Correction
6776 Reisterstown Road
Baltimore, Maryland 21215
Re: Custody/Security Status of Persons Serving Parolable Life Sentences
Dear Mr. Lanham:
I've been requested by inmates serving parolable life sentences to get in contact with you in the hope of determining whether work release status will again be available to this population. June 3, 1994 was the one year anniversary of the "pullback" (i.e., all persons with life sentences were removed from work release and minimum security and placed back in medium security).
It is important to remember that persons with life sentences ("lifers") comprise about 8% of the total population of the DOC and their number and proportion has been increasing at least for the first years of this decade. A person sentenced to a life term today may well still be in the system in the year 2050. The overall cost to the State would easily exceed a million and a half dollars ($1,500,000) per person without accounting for inflation or legal costs.
Most "lifers" can be distinguished from "three time losers" or "life without parole" in that many of them are only "one time losers", where a heinous crime may have been committed while the person was in his early 20s however in the many years in the interim, the individual has shown a spotless institutional record, an outstanding educational history and numerous recommendations by the Parole Commission and others.
Attached is a chart of data recently compiled from questionnaires distributed at MCTC. The eight candidates are ranked in order of birthdate. It can be seen comparing the "Age Now" column with the "Age at Time of Incarceration" and "Number of Years Incarcerated" that these inmates are very distant from the circumstances surrounding their criminal offense. It can also be seen by "Work Release History" that most if not all of these candidates has a proven correctional track record and is extremely unlikely to commit future offenses. What cannot be quantified are future health care costs as these individuals become more prone to chronic illnesses such as high blood pressure or heart disease. Surely, housing needs will have to be addressed with the onset of arthritis, osteoporosis and/or orthopedic debility.
We understand that your office must be sensitive to public opinion and political pressures. However, we remind you that the House Judiciary Committee of the General Assembly, during the 1994 session, decisively found any legislation that would have proscribed lifer access to work release "unfavorable". At one hearing, I was even asked about the likelihood of litigation -- the delegate in question was using the prospect of litigation as an argument against the pending bill.
We are aware that the Legal Aid Bureau has now instituted proceedings in the federal court for those "lifers" actually removed from work release status in 1993. A number of individuals are represented. However, the litigation alone does not address the problem of encouraging lifers early on in the "pipeline" by an eventual change to work release status and, hopefully, parole.
Work release is a cost effective correctional option. With the exception of the Home Detention Unit, work release was the only program available in the Division of Correction wherein monies were returned to the State. It is also far cheaper from a correctional management standpoint than higher levels of security. You yourself have testified that there is a savings of about $5,000 per year with each stepwise decrease in security level.
The work release program provided incentive and rewarded good behavior, enhancing the climate for other prisoners and employees in the institution. No doubt the number of assaults and other serious incidents among this group is significantly less when the prospect of work release appears attainable. A case in point is the Penitentiary where as of January of this year, the number of "lifers" was 627 out of 905 residents. How is it possible among these two-thirds of maximum security inmates to differentiate those persons who deserve medium or minimum security classification? It is only with confidence that years of good behavior and educational achievement will eventually bear fruit that this population can be managed.
For all of the above reasons, we therefore ask at this time that your office issue a revised classification policy for this population and that the work release program again be made available to deserving candidates.
Sincerely,
Nancy Moran
Volunteer
nm
cc:
Mr. Bishop Robinson
Governor William Donald Schaefer