Ex-state parole board member warns of dangers of fixed terms

COLUMBUS (AP) — Inmates have little incentive to pursue educational or job training opportunities because of an Ohio law that imposes fixed terms with no parole, a retiring parole board member said.

State prisons are crowded — the inmate population is expected to hit 50,000 for the first time in the next few weeks — and could get worse, warned Peter Davis, whose last day as a member of the Ohio Parole Board was Friday. He formerly served as director of the Legislature’s Correctional Institution Inspection Committee.

Ohio’s flat sentencing law, enacted in 1996, eliminated time off for good behavior in favor of fixed-term sentences, meaning inmates are released at the end of their term. There is little, if any, incentive for inmates to take advantage of programs such as vocational training, Davis said.

Inmates are increasingly aggressive and violent, he said.

“We’re getting a different kind of prisoner,” Davis, 57, told The Columbus Dispatch. “Flat time is awful from multiple dimensions.”

Davis leaves at a time when state lawmakers are considering a “three strikes” bill that would allow judges to double the sentence for a third-time felon.

Supporters of the bill, sponsored by state Sen. Tim Grendell, a suburban Cleveland Republican, acknowledge that such a law would weigh on Ohio’s already crowded prisons. But they want to change a system that, for example, allows someone convicted for the 10th time of check forgery to face the same maximum one-year prison sentence as someone convicted of a first offense.

The measure would add to a state law that requires judges to impose maximum penalties for those convicted of three violent first- or second-degree felonies.

Davis was viewed as a prisoner advocate when he arrived at the parole board in 2001, but he said he never played favorites.

One of his toughest jobs, he said, was handling death penalty clemency cases, in which the parole board makes a recommendation to the governor, who makes the final life-or-death decision.

Davis said after he thoroughly explored all pros and cons of a clemency plea, he never had difficulty, when it was appropriate, in recommending that the governor deny clemency.