18 YEARS OF PHANTOM PAROLE SUPERVISION

By now, unless you’re living under a rock, you have learned that Jaycee Lee Dugard, who was kidnapped in California 18 years ago when she was only 11-years-old, has been found alive.

Jaycee, now 29, had been kept in a backyard shed and tent in Antioch, California by convicted rapist Phillip Craig Garrido, 58, and his wife. Jaycee gave birth to two girls – now 15 and 11- fathered by Garrido. That piece of shit was on parole in Nevada at the time of the kidnapping and his parole was transferred to California 10 years ago. However, authorities believe he has actually been living in Antioch since before the abduction. (Garrido was imprisoned for a parole violation from April to August of 1993 when Jaycee was 13.)

A University of California at Berkeley cop was instrumental in the happy ending to this case. She became suspicious of Garrido who, accompanied by two adult women (his wife and Jaycee) and two young girls, was handing out religious tracts on campus. She observed that he was wearing a GPS ankle monitor. Her questioning of Garrido led to a background check which revealed he was a sex offender on parole. Thereupon she contacted his parole agent.

The parole agent then ordered Garrido to come to his office. He showed up with his wife, Jaycee and the two girls. The parole agent questioned Garrido and obtained his confession to the kidnapping. A job well done, but it would have been far better had he rushed out to Garrido's residence for an after-dark surprise visit.

Scott Kernan, Undersecretary of Operations for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR), was quick to heap a bucket full of praise on the parole agent and on CDCR. Whoa! That’s where we part company. While the parole agent did a commendable job in his office, where was the field supervision in Nevada and in California for the past 18 years?

What were the parole officers in Nevada doing while Garrido was really living in Antioch? Apparently nothing! And what kind of field supervision was this sex offender getting in California for the past 10 years? Apparently little if any! You cannot adequately supervise a parolee just through office visits and by monitoring his GPS ankle bracelet. What we had in this case was nothing more than a "phantom parole."

A good job of parole field supervision would long ago have uncovered that Garrido had kidnapped Jaycee and was holding her captive. I am sure that he has had several different California parole agents over the past 10 years. None of them did the job expected of them and that includes the agent who got Carrido to confess.

This case is a huge embarrassment and represents a colossal failure of the parole system. Instead of heaping praise on CDCR, this case should be a wakeup call on the sorry state of phantom parole supervision, not only in California and Nevada, but throughout the United States as well.

As for that piece of shit Garrido, Bob Walsh had this to say on PacoVilla’s Corrections blog: Jaycee has been reunited with her mother. Sometimes there are happy endings. It would be happier if they were going to fry that bastard Garrido and maybe his wife who was apparently a direct participant in the kidnapping, but we don’t do that any more.