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Fairness for Prisoners’ Families a program of The Southern Center for Human Rights c/o 83 Poplar Street, NW ● Atlanta, GA., 30303 voice 404/688-1202 ● fax 404/688-9440 email fairness@gejustice.org |
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~Please take a moment to sign this petition~ Operation Open Book A
campaign calling for the
removal of state secret status
of parole files and to insure
The Parole Consideration Process pulls together and illustrates everything that is wrong with Georgia's criminal justice system. Georgia incarcerates almost 50,000 people in its prison and over 30,000 people in its jails, and has one of the highest incarceration rates in the nation of one in 15 adults. A major reason for this crisis is that there is a major lack of accountability and absolutely no transparency in the process through which those in prison are paroled. Decisions by the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles are not based on whether an individual has exhibited good behavior while in prison or been rehabilitated. There is no hearing in front of the Parole Board, and no chance for the members of the Board to meet the people whose lives they hold in their hands. Instead, decisions are made entirely based on what has been put into an individual's parole file. A five-member Parole Board spends approximately five minutes reviewing paperwork from an individual's file. In addition, parole files are classified by Georgia law as "state secret." (Official Code of Georgia 42 9 53). The parole file is kept so secret that even when the Parole Board is deciding whether to let someone live or to send him or her to be killed in Georgia's death chamber, the person's lawyer isn't allowed to check the parole file, to be sure the Board isn't basing its decision on errors in the file. An individual's attorney, a prosecuting attorney, even the governor cannot view parole files. Family after family has called the Georgia Parole Board, desperate for any information at all on the status of their loved ones' parole status, only to be told that "It's being processed," or "It's under investigation," or given other assurances that everything is under control. Yet recently, the Atlanta Journal Constitution exposed a terrible instance of the Parole Board's failure of the public trust-fifty-nine parole files were discovered sitting on a desk in the Clemency Division Director's office (Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 5/1/04, "Paroles Stalled As Official Ignored Files.") The story detailed how fifty-nine Georgia prisoners sat in prison waiting for parole while the files that could have helped grant their freedom gathered dust in director of clemency Michael Sullivan's office --- with one prisoner's file "gather[ing] dust . . . for more than five years." Inaction on the files may have cost Georgia taxpayers as much as $526,000 to keep the inmates in prison, not to mention the costs on the lives of the prisoners and their loved ones awaiting news about their parole. Shortly after the files were discovered in February, the cases were expedited and 18 of the prisoners were paroled. Another seven prisoners served their entire sentence while waiting to hear whether they would be released early. Fairness and Accountability The Parole Board assures people in prison, their families, and the general public that all its decisions are fair. The State Board of Pardons and Paroles website says that the Parole Board can be "entrusted to make an objective decision rising above political and personal consideration." The website also says that the Parole Board has Guidelines to help it make "more consistent and soundly based decisions which are understandable for the inmate and accountable to the public." Yet, how can the public hold the Parole Board accountable for the decisions it makes when all of its decisions are considered "state secrets"? When public meetings are not announced or regularly scheduled? When minutes from meetings are less than a page long, and do not detail what has happened at the meetings? The time has come for all of this to change. Click on the link below to learn more about Operation Open Book and how people across Georgia are coming together to demand transparency, accountability, and fairness from the Parole Board!
Endorse Operation Open Book:
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Will YOU help collect signatures for this campaign? Contact us at 404/651-5576 or fairness@gejustice.org to have an organizing packet for petitions sent to you. |
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