Courtesy of: 1819news.com Wanda Jones Miller: The truth about the Alabama Parole Board
Wanda Jones Miller | 07.07.25
Crime has spiked across the country and here in Alabama leaving residents understandably concerned about safety.
One obscure but vital element of public safety in Alabama is our Parole Board, which has been harshly vilified by critics. We need to know the truth about the three-person board determining which felons are released early from prison.
Since the 1990s, I have attended more than a thousand parole hearings, including 16 in my own case after I was the victim of a highly publicized kidnapping/rape in Birmingham that included multiple offenders. It would be an understatement to say I’ve seen the good, the bad, and the ugly in the evolution of the Parole Board the past three decades.
A Vital Gatekeeper for Public Safety
The Parole Board is incredibly important, not only to the thousands of crime victims whose cases are considered each year, but also to Alabama’s law enforcement officers and prosecutors – and inmates – who are all deeply invested in the roughly 3,300+ parole decisions. But it’s stunning to see the incessant character-assassination directed at the Parole Board and its Chair Leigh Gwathney, maligned for simply doing their jobs.
One of the most important stats to understand is that 81% of the currently imprisoned inmates are there for committing a violent offense, yet the ACLU, SPLC, and other critics of the Parole Board are pushing for the release of inmates much sooner than the sentences given by judges who are most familiar with the cases.
In Alabama, parole is a privilege that must be earned by the inmate; it is NOT a right. Shortly after sentencing, the offender’s parole-eligibility date is calculated based on various factors. Most Alabamians would be shocked at how early some inmates are eligible for parole.
“The [Parole] board’s paramount duty is to protect public safety,” Alabama law states. This past legislative session, lawmakers passed various public safety bills, but their efforts could be quickly diminished by the wrong appointments to the Parole Board.
My colleague Darlene Hutchinson Biehl, a longtime victim advocate appointed by President Trump in 2017 to lead the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office for Victims of Crime, has this perspective:
We often hear about rogue, soft-on-crime prosecutors and judges in other states and think that won’t happen in Alabama. Instead, a devious faction who favors a lawless society, is gaining a foothold in Alabama, and their inaccurate propaganda directed at the Parole Board is frequently featured in online news articles and too often believed by public officials who haven’t verified the facts.
“Alabama has 42 elected district attorneys and more than 100 circuit judges who we count on to hold violent offenders accountable and protect the public,” Darlene adds, “but their work can be easily undone, as most criminal sentences can be cut significantly by the Parole Board – which is why we must have the most exceptional professionals serving on the Parole Board, protecting the integrity of our criminal justice system. No one wants to hear this, but the Parole Board is essentially more powerful than our elected district attorneys and judges.”
Parole Rates & Other Factors
Recent criticism focused on the number of inmates the Parole Board releases each month or year, as if these highs and lows are the stock market. In 2017-2018, the Board was carelessly granting parole to about 50% of the inmates they reviewed, releasing dangerous felons – including Jimmy O’Neal Spencer, who killed three innocent souls in Marshall County shortly after his parole.
These perilous parole decisions led to a clear directive from lawmakers in 2019 and legislation restructuring the parole process. This is when Gov. Kay Ivey appointed Gwathney as Parole Board chair, bringing sanity back to the agency and making public safety the foremost goal. A career prosecutor, Gwathney consistently demonstrates steadfast leadership in complex, delicate situations.
In 2020, COVID altered the parole hearing schedule, and paroles dipped. Another effect on the number of paroles granted was the Mandatory Supervised Release law enacted in 2015 and amended in 2021 to be retroactive. Automatically shaving three to 12 months off the end of an inmate’s sentence, this program assures the criminal will be supervised as they transition out of prison. Nearly 2,300 inmates received Mandatory Release in the past year. Another 3,500 were released from prison after an abbreviated “split sentence” to go onto probation, and by law, these inmates are ineligible for parole. Interestingly, the number of inmates released after serving a “split sentence” has increased 21% over the past two years.
The rate at which paroles are granted may fluctuate because of various factors. However, disingenuous “news reporters” always point back to statistics from 2017-2018 as a benchmark to insinuate that the Parole Board isn’t releasing enough violent inmates currently.
What Affects an Inmate’s Chance at Parole
According to ADOC’s Monthly Statistical Report for April 2025, inmates collectively received about 1,500 disciplinaries each month, which equals more than 17,000 annually – for an in-house prison population of 21,000 inmates. Of course, some prisoners receive multiple disciplinaries each every year, but clearly MANY inmates are violating prison rules, obviously reducing the chance of parole.
Also, an inmate’s “life plan” is important. Upon release, where will the inmate live and work? Who will help hold them accountable? We can’t expect a Parole Board to release an inmate who hasn’t developed a plan that improves their chances for success if paroled.
The Infamous Parole Guidelines
The Parole Guidelines have probably garnered the most attention, as critics claim the Parole Board is dysfunctional and doesn’t follow their own rules. Established during the 2015 Prison Reform effort, the law explicitly says, “The use of established guidelines for parole consideration shall not create a right or expectation by a prisoner to parole release. … The guidelines shall serve as an aid in the parole decisionmaking process, and the decision concerning parole release shall be at the complete discretion of the board.”
But pro-inmate activists seem to think the Guidelines “create a right or expectation” to be paroled. Can the decision to release a violent offender early be quantified and assessed on the front/back of a score sheet? This isn’t the Miss America pageant.
In 2016, the Parole Board (a completely different agency than it is today) began using the two-page scoresheet to assist in making parole decisions. The “Guidelines” have evolved slightly and are currently being updated by the Board. Using the existing Guidelines, an inmate gets “points” depending on the severity of the crime, disciplinary problems while incarcerated, the completion of re-entry programs, the inmate’s risk assessment, and their “life plan” if released, plus they consider input from the victim, law enforcement, the inmate’s family, or other stakeholders.
Depending on their total “score,” the Guidelines advise the Parole Board to either release the inmate or deny parole. Even though Alabama law says the Parole Board retains discretion to make decisions about paroles, the Board’s rare agreement with the current scoring scheme has been heavily criticized. Here’s a sample of the foolish concept of using a checklist to evaluate whether to release a dangerous felon EARLY:
- The “institutional behavior” section only goes back 12 months. What if an inmate stabbed a guard 13 months ago, but hasn’t been caught for an infraction since?
- Regarding “participation in risk-reducing programming/treatment,” if the inmate is on a waiting list to complete a program, it’s the same as having completed it. Really?!
Sadly, it appears very few lawmakers have ever attended a parole hearing, yet they heed the anecdotal complaints and distorted talking points from nefarious actors who claim the current Parole Board lacks transparency and is above oversight – which is absolutely false.
Mere words cannot explain how important these 20-minute parole hearings are to the crime victims who plan for and dread these events years in advance – lives that have been shattered by acts of violence. Many still carry deep wounds decades later, and they just want to be treated with fairness and respect, and they yearn for justice and safety.
Some ill-conceived legislative proposals have gained momentum in recent years – bills that would radically transform the parole process and undoubtedly jeopardize public safety. In 2023, the Joint Legislative Prison Committee heard from families of inmates, detailing the hardships offenders face behind bars. That hearing led to legislation to hire 10 new DOC “constituent services” employees to cut through red tape when inmates’ families had concerns. When the Prison Committee is ready to have a public hearing for the victims and families harmed by those incarcerated, we’ll be ready. I assure you, this testimony will be quite compelling and very representative of the constituents these lawmakers serve.
We’re eager for Alabama’s public officials to see a true, complete picture – not just the one-sided propaganda dominating the headlines on other news platforms.
Wanda Jones Miller is the Executive Director of VOCAL (Victims of Crime and Leniency), a non-profit organization established in 1982 by crime victims to help other crime victims. Previously, Wanda served 18 years as the director of victim services for the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Dept., four years at the Shelby County DA’s office, and has assisted a wide variety of crime victims and families over the past 30 years.
The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of 1819 News. To comment, please send an email with your name and contact information to Commentary@1819news.com.
