The Validity of Parole Selection

W HEN shall this prison inmate be returned to society? Parole boards, whether they admit it or not, are forced to answer this questionmany times eaclh year. For them the question is not academic or theoretical. They must answer the question and act on their answer immediately-whether they are prepared to or notwhether they are confident of their answer or notwhether they want to or not. There is no opportunity for or possibility of academic or investigative procrastination or hedging. No policy of wait and see can be adopted. Since over 95 percent of the men who enter prison must be returned to society before they die, the welfare and security of the people of the United States is vitally affected by the accuracy of the parole boards' decisions. During the last twenty-five years, more than a score of researchers have tried to help the parole boards of the nation in their search for satisfactory answers to this question. Thousands of parolees have been studied and followed up from one to even fifteen years after their release from an institution. Many things, from height and weight to emotional stress and strain, have been analyzed for association with recidivism. Recidivism prediction tables for use in anticipating the subsequent criminal behavior of potential parolees have emerged from a few of the studies. Statistical tests of significance for accuracy in calling shots have even been passed by some of them. How well at this time are the parole boards and parole predictors answering the question of when to release a prisoner? The Wisconsin Parole Board and the parole predictors are not even trying to answer the question. Instead of approaching the problem of parole in keeping with present legal authority, they are both acting as though the millenium of the absolute indeterminate sentence were already upon us. Both are acting according to their stated policy and purpose as though they were deciding once and for all whether or not a particular inmate will ever return to society. Although it is a fact that at least 95 out of every 100 men they consider for parole will leave prison eventually even if they turn him down, they handle him on a more or less now or never basis. The question they are in reality asking is, what are the chances that this mian will commit another crime? This is the announced standard they wish to be measured by. They shall be judged accordingly-first, the Wisconsin Parole Board and other boards like them; and second, the recidivism researchers. How well does the Wisconsin Parole Board answer the substitute question? At the present time informal experience is the primary guide of the Wisconsin parole authority in selecting men for parole. How good a guide is the parole board's informal experience in determining the amount of risk involved in the release of a man? This can be answered by ascertaining what, if any, and how much, if any, relationship exists between the information they consider before releasing men and the behavior of the men after release. All of the parole authority's informal experience can not be so studied. That part of informal experience that consists of hunch, whim, or sudden insight which can not be communicated and thereby made objective can not be studied scientifically. What can be analyzed is the factual information which is systematically collected in a reasonably reliable way about each man and presented to the parole board for its consideration. This information is prepared for the Board by the prison record office and by the parole bureau. Included in this study, therefore, are all the factors collected for the use of the parole authority that are reasonably reliable. The reasonably reliable information considered by the parole authority consisted of: (1) frequency and seriousness of previous criminal record, (2) total time spent under legal supervision from birth up to admission to the Wisconsin State Prison, (3) type of crime for which imprisoned before the release under study, (4) age at first arrest, (5) total time spent under legal supervision since birth, (6) number of citations received for misconduct, (exclusive of solitary confinement), during their current stay in the Wisconsin State Prison, (7) age at leaving school, (8) age upon admission to the Wisconsin State Prison, (9) age when released from * Read before the thirteenth annual meeting of the Southern Sociological Society, Biloxi, Mississippi, April 14, 1950.