A State House briefing aims to show why the Parole Board needs more manpower and resources—now
A briefing on pending parole legislation and ideas to reform and support an overworked Parole Board will take place this Thursday, March 6, starting at 1pm in room 222 at the Massachusetts State House.
The event is being organized by advocates from the Coalition for Effective Public Safety (in which this reporter participates), an organization formed “to promote and safeguard human rights” with a focus on parole. Parole allows successful petitioners to serve the remainder of their sentence in the community under supervision. A seven-member board hears petitions and sets parole conditions.
The briefing is sponsored by the state legislature’s Criminal Justice Reform Caucus, which is chaired by Sen. Jamie Eldridge and Rep. Mary Keefe. A panel of experts will join lawmakers to discuss bills and reform ideas which advocates say are long overdue. The panel includes: Patty Garin, a longtime parole attorney who directs the Northeastern University School of Law Prisoners’ Rights Clinic; Mara Voukydis, the director of the Parole Advocacy Unit for the Committee for Public Counsel Services; Tom Koonce, a former prisoner who earned a commutation in 2022 and is now the director of reentry and violence prevention at the Center for Teen Empowerment; and Lisa Berland, a member of Parole Watch, an advocacy group that attends hearings and keeps data on the Parole Board.
Bills that legislators and their aides will speak on include: An Act to promote timely access to parole hearings, sponsored by Rep. Keefe; An Act to end lifetime parole for juveniles and emerging adults, sponsored by Sen. Eldridge; and Rep. Lindsay Sabadosa’s Act to promote equitable access to parole. Advocates say all of these bills are important and stress that the Parole Board needs a fix now—not in a year.
An overloaded Parole Board
In March 2024, it was clear that the seven members of the Mass Parole Board could not manage the tasks in front of them without more resources. In a column for CommonWealth Beacon, we laid out how the body, stretched beyond imagination, had more work due to the landmark ruling, Commonwealth v. Mattis.
The Mass Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) rendered that ruling in January 2024, providing those 18 to 20 years of age at the time of their crime—and previously doomed to serve life without parole (LWOP)—with protections against a mandatory death-in-prison sentence. That fostered an opportunity for release on parole, a development stemming from a 2013 ruling that “mandatory life without parole for those under the age of eighteen at the time of their crimes violates the prohibition in the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution on ‘cruel and unusual punishment.’” Life without parole is now unconstitutional for anyone in Mass who was 20 or younger at the time of their crime.
The seven-member Parole Board reads literally hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of pages related to applicants serving life sentences prior to hearings. Twice, and sometimes three times a week, the full board listens to in-person lifer hearings lasting two to three hours, often totaling 20 hearings each month. For two other days, members travel to prisons and houses of correction throughout the state, conducting hearings individually or in groups of two or three. They also spend one day in their Natick office discussing and voting on cases.
In 2022, according to its annual report, the board held a total of 3,008 parole hearings. In addition, about 150 Mattis clients immediately became eligible for parole after the SJC ruling in 2024, upping the workload.
In its other role as the Advisory Board of Pardons, the Parole Board reviews clemency petitions, including requests for both commutations and pardons (a commutation is a reduction in sentence; a pardon removes the underlying offense). And that workload is also heavier than usual, since new clemency guidelines were issued in 2023 by Gov. Maura Healey.
With that uptick in petitions, public records show that the Parole Board’s responsibilities have increased by 20% since 2021. And that doesn’t even account for the Mattis cases. So far, according to data shared in an email from Lisa Berland at Parole Watch, 22 Mattis hearings have been held.
Revelations gleaned from Parole Board and other public records include:
- The total number of hearings held in 2024 increased by 19.5% compared to 2021 and by 6% compared to 2023 or 2022, and there was a 9% increase in the number of lifer hearings in 2024 compared to 2023.
- There was a 24% increase in the number of all office votes processed in 2024 compared to 2021, and a 13.6% increase from 2023 to 2024. Examples of office vote types include requests for change of vote, provisional rescissions and revocations, appeal requests, requests for reconsideration, etc.
- There was a 367% increase in the number of executive clemency office votes processed in 2024 (112) compared to 2023 (24).
In the face of more hurdles, some signs of increased Parole Board efficiency
In addition to other duties, the current Mass Parole Board is now hearing requests for terminations. According to statute, petitioners with life sentences from the commonwealth—and who are without violations—are eligible to apply to have their parole terminated after one year on supervised release. However, the Parole Board has usually approved those who have completed 10 years. To be considered, petitioners must have lived exemplary lives, by and large, since their release from prison.
We found from a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request that before Tina Hurley became chair of the Parole Board, there were no hearings for prisoners to terminate their parole in the past decade. Since Hurley became chair in November 2022, 73 people have applied to have their parole terminated. Sixty-seven of them are lifers, meaning they are eligible for hearings in front of the full board. Of that lot, 46 have been granted hearings, resulting in 21 successful petitions.
In surveying the workload, it is clear that Mattis has created a herculean task for the Parole Board. Attorney Patty Garin, who has taught Northeastern law students to represent clients at parole hearings, said in an interview for this article, “The board is doing an amazing job with the limited resources they have, but they cannot possibly sustain this level of work. If Massachusetts is going to achieve the important re-entry goals set by the governor and the legislature, we need more Parole Board members and other resources.”
Attorney Kim Jones is the founder of the Massachusetts Parole Preparation Partnership, which helps ready prisoners for hearings. She said it’s important to remember how much the board has improved under the leadership of Hurley. In a letter supporting the chair’s renomination, Jones and 50 other individuals and organizations wrote, “Under her leadership, the Board’s efficiency has improved in many different ways. Parole Board staff and advocates have reported positive changes in the administration at the Board’s central office in Natick, as well as in Field Services, Institutional Hearings, and Lifer Hearings.”
A lawsuit could bring attention to the Mass Parole Board logjam
In response to the need for Mattis hearings, in February, attorney Matthew J. Koes filed a lawsuit on behalf of seven prisoners seeking parole, suing not only the Parole Board but also the Executive Office of Public Safety and Security and Gov. Healey. The complaint alleges that hearings have not been scheduled in a timely fashion.
Hurley wrote to the attorneys representing the seven plaintiffs—Robert Francis, Allen Alston, Tanzerius Anderson, Lewis Franklin, Jabrai Copney, Sam Smith and Christopher Middlemiss—who have all together served more than 160 years behind bars. The letter read, in part: “We hope you will be understanding and patient as this is an unprecedented amount of additional cases to add to the Parole Board’s calendar … We too wish to provide each individual with a meaningful hearing before the Parole Board.”
Seven Mattis hearings have been scheduled in March, and 10 are on the calendar for April. Attorney Koes wrote in the lawsuit: “At the current rate, it will take years before all of the plaintiffs have had their initial parole hearings.”
Zachary Lown, another attorney on the case, said in a phone interview that the lawsuit “is not an attack on the Parole Board by any of these individuals or by the suit’s lawyers.” Lown noted, “The board just doesn’t have the resources or the structure to accommodate these hearings. If we need the court to step in to be the problem solver, that’s ultimately where we end up.”
He added: “These are not people we should throw away.” As for the Parole Board, Lown said, “Our goals are not misaligned—we all want these cases heard expeditiously.”
What can the governor do about the overworked Parole Board?
Laws take a long time to pass. In the case of Massachusetts, that means the 2025-26 legislative session has more than a year left for bills to be considered. But while the work piles up at the Parole Board, the governor could step in, advocates say.
Following the statute, last year Gov. Healy appointed three retirees—they have to be retired judges or retired Parole Board members—to help out with house of correction (HOC) parole hearings. These hearings and others for non-lifers are held in state prisons and involve travel time for board members. But because at least one or two board members still need to sign off on each of the HOC decisions, the Parole Board’s load has not been significantly lessened.
Attorney Garin from Northeastern’s Prisoners’ Rights Clinic suggested that Healey amend the relevant statute, adding five instead of three special members, and also giving these appointees broader authority.
According to Garin, the governor could also support a bill that increases the size of the Parole Board. The process could be expedited if she promotes the measure to the legislature and then “files with the secretary of the commonwealth a statement declaring that, in [her] opinion, the immediate preservation of the public peace, health, safety or convenience requires that such law should take effect forthwith.”
Past practice has shown that Gov. Healey could convene a meeting of interested parties to propose solutions. Panel participants say some possible fixes will be presented at the parole briefing at the State House on March 6.
