🧵 After a year in the public spotlight, Alabama’s 3-member parole board started letting more people out in 2024, even if it was most often on a split vote. Chair Leigh Gwathney remains a reliable "no" vote, but the other two members have been voting yes more often. www.al.com/news/2024/12... - ThreadSky

al.com • 63 days ago

🧵 After a year in the public spotlight, Alabama’s 3-member parole board started letting more people out in 2024, even if it was most often on a split vote. Chair Leigh Gwathney remains a reliable "no" vote, but the other two members have been voting yes more often.

https://www.al.com/news/2024/12/alabamas-parole-rate-more-than-doubled-in-2024-accountability-has-changed-things.html

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alabamaprogress.bsky.social•62 days ago

We are going to say this is a long overdue success! Still a long way to go but it's a win.

al.com•63 days ago

That’s how it’s gone most of this year, as @al.com's Ivana Hrynkiw spent 2024 delving into Alabama’s broken parole system, a system that had all but stopped releasing eligible prisoners in 2023. (Read all the coverage here: https://al.com/denied.)

al.com•63 days ago

In 2023, the parole rate fell to just 8% – despite the parole board’s own criteria showing about 80% of the eligible inmates should be let out. Gwathney even denied parole to a quadriplegic inmate who couldn’t speak and another inmate who had died a week earlier. https://www.al.com/news/birmingham/2024/02/alabama-said-he-was-too-dangerous-to-parole-hed-been-dead-for-10-days.html

al.com•63 days ago

But in 2024, following @al.com's extensive and ongoing reporting, the broken system began to change: Two of the three parole board members began to change their voting patterns, opting to let more people out of prison. https://www.al.com/news/2024/07/alabama-paroles-hit-historic-lows-last-year-heres-what-changed-amid-scrutiny-in-2024.html

al.com•63 days ago

Alabama’s parole rate rose to 20% in 2024, according to data from the Bureau of Pardons and Paroles. That comes out to roughly 250 more people getting out of prison this year than in 2023. That’s still despite the board’s own guidelines showing 83% of the eligible inmates should be paroled.

al.com•63 days ago

[email protected]'s reporting found:
- Alabama used to parole most eligible inmates. Nearly all paroles stopped when Gwathney became chair in 2019.
- Parole is often denied to people already safely working in fast food and warehouse jobs, sometimes for years.
https://www.al.com/news/2024/12/alabama-says-they-are-safe-enough-for-kfc-but-too-dangerous-for-parole.html

al.com•63 days ago

- Many of the denied are serving out decades-long sentences under three-strikes laws that no longer exist.
- The prison system itself has to use medical furloughs instead of depending on parole to send dying, elderly inmates home.
https://www.al.com/news/2024/09/alabama-prisons-let-out-old-sick-and-dying-inmates-denied-parole.html

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