(The Center Square) – At a North Carolina legislative hearing this week, legislators and the chairman of the state’s Commission on Post-Release Supervision and Parole agreed that more needs to be done to help prisoners once they have completed their sentences and are released.
Rep. Phil Shepard, a Republican from Onslaw County and a minister, relayed the story of a released inmate who was “living homeless in a tent in the woods.”
The former inmate’s wife had died of a drug overdose.
“He didn’t have a driver’s license, didn’t have an identification card,” Shephard said during a meeting of the House Select Committee on Government Efficiency. “You are looking at someone who lived two or three years in a tent. What can I do to help them? It’s almost like it sets them up for failure.”
Darren Jackson, chairman of the North Carolina post-release supervision and parole commission, replied that the legislator had “identified something that is very frustrating to me.”
Inmates who are paroled have a release plan at least for their first year of freedom, which includes transitional housing, Jackson told legislators.
For non-parolees, “We see people who are released homeless, dozens a day,” said Jackson.
If they don’t have a home to go to, the released inmates are taken to the county where they were convicted.
“If that county has a homeless shelter, they’ll drop them off at the homeless shelter,” Jackson said. “If that county does not have a homeless shelter, they will drop off at the courthouse or near the probation office so that they can make their first appointment within 72 hours. It’s a problem.”
Convicted sex offenders in particular have a difficult time finding a place to live when they are released.
The federal prison system generally releases inmates to halfway houses so that they can make a transition to life outside prison, Jackson.
“I think something on that scale is what we need,” he told legislators. “Having a church that fixes up a house and makes it available to an offender is great. But that’s one house. How many offenders are coming that day to that county? It’s a big problem that we’re constantly dealing with.”
The North Carolina legislature in 1994 ended parole, shifting to a system of “structured sentencing” that requires offenders to serve at least 100% of their minimum sentence and 85% of the maximum sentence.
However, the state still has a commission that can consider inmates for parole who were convicted before the 1994 law was enacted. The commission has four members appointed by the governor and a staff of 33.
Inmates convicted before 1994 are classified as “discretionary,” meaning they may be eligible for parole, Jackson told members of the House Select Committee on Government Efficiency.
The commission works to prepare inmates to be successful once they are released from prison.
An estimated 90% of inmates will eventually be released, Jackson told lawmakers.
The commission wants to help them become, “successful, taxpaying lawful members of society,” Jackson said.
