Parole Policy
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Re “State Slams Door on Hopes for Parole,” Oct. 3: Gov. Gray Davis, by overruling his Board of Prison Terms 100% on releasing deserving prisoners, is violating the spirit of the law and is in effect ignoring the decisions of courts and juries.
By his rigid policy he is converting second-degree sentences to first-degree ones without the benefit of parole. Thus he is making a joke of the expensive parole board and keeping deserving prisoners in overcrowded prisons at taxpayer expense, when they could be useful citizens again.
While the governor’s policy might make sense politically, it stinks from a human standpoint. He should remember that great leaders in the past knew when to make exceptions and grant mercy to deserving people.
W. EARL HABERLIN
La Canada
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Why doesn’t Davis eliminate the parole board completely, saving the taxpayers the almost half-million dollars a year earned by the commissioners? Parole hearings are obviously not the road to release for rehabilitated prisoners but just meaningless exercises.
DOROTHY CHAPMAN
San Clemente
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