REFLECTIONS ON CRIME, PUNISHMENT AND REDEMPTION

Frederic Reamer’s book On the Parole Board lifts the veil on a justice system process through dozens of case files in Rhode Island over 24 years

By Daniel Bates

The Guardian
October 25, 2016

Some cases kept Frederic Reamer up at night.

During his 24 years on the Rhode Island parole board, Reamer met murderers who had repented and killers who had begged for forgiveness. Reamer’s job was to decide whether they had done enough to be freed.

After studying case files and prison reports, on the day of the parole hearing Reamer would meet the victims in the morning and the criminals in the afternoon. Reamer called these days gut-wrenching.

The hardest cases, by far, were always those where the victim was adamant about not paroling this inmate because of the horror.

“And then on the other side of the coin an inmate demonstrates genuine, profound, impressive insight, they’ve worked very hard at their issues,” Reamer said. “When you try to boil down justice, what’s the right thing to do in those instances?”

Reamer’s new book, On The Parole Board: Reflections on Crime, Punishment and Redemption, which is out next month on Columbia University Press, goes through dozens of cases where this tension plays out. His aim is to “lift back the curtain” on the parole process, which allows a group of unelected officials to have enormous influence on the criminal justice system.

According to the Pew Research Centre, one in 31 adults, or 7.3 million people, are in prison or on parole in the US. All but three state parole boards have some degree of control over prisoners’ release – but almost half of all states keep parole files secret, meaning there is little accountability.

Reamer, who has spent his life in academia and is currently a professor of social work at Rhode Island College, said he took his responsibilities seriously.

He said deciding on parole is “not just an intellectual exercise” and is something that affected him deeply: “For me, much of this work requires deep looks at the personal, the very emotional quality of these cases. This is not mental gymnastics, trying to put all of this data into in an equation and reaching a decision. There’s a lot of pathos, there’s a lot of emotion and a lot of tears.”

Among the cases in the book is Robert Blane, who set fire to an apartment block where he worked as a maintenance man, severely burning a five-year-old boy and his father.

The father, Alexis Ronaldo, told the board: “Every day I stare down at my legs I am reminded of the fire.” He said he cannot work, he can barely walk and watching his son experience the same agony makes him sometimes wish he died in the blaze.

During his parole hearing Blane, a model prisoner, was told about this and started crying. He said: “I feel awful. Just awful. I can’t wrap my mind around the fact that I did that to another human being. No one deserves that. I hate myself for what I did. Mr Ronaldo and his son have every right to hate me and to want me to stay in prison. How can I blame them for that?”

At that hearing, Blane had only served a third of his sentence and his parole was denied.

The case that stuck with Reamer the most was Dave Sempsrott, who became his pen pal for 30 years after they met at a support group in prison.

Over dozens of letters, some of which Reamer shared with the Guardian, Sempsrott opened up about why in 1977, whilst high on PCP, he stabbed to death his best friend Don, Don’s wife and their four-year-old daughter.

His explanation is blunt and chilling: “I cannot give you any reason as to why I committed these murders. I do not know and I don’t think I ever will. I remember no argument at all; I was not mad at Don. He was my best friend. What can I say?”

On the other hand Reamer came to respect Sempsrott, who died in prison in 2013, for the letters in which he accepted what he did. “I think he felt so horrible about what he had done there was a part of him that wanted the world to know how badly he felt because that didn’t come out at the trial. His defence attorneys don’t want you talking about that stuff. I think this was his opportunity to say to the world, I know I messed up”.

Reamer, 63, who worked as a parole board officer from 1992 until January this year, said he has a “pretty good radar” for when prisoners are lying.

He cites one inmate who would take his crucifix out of his shirt so the board could see it during the interview, as if to show off his faith. “There will always be a certain type of inmate who is so manipulative, so cunning I would never vote to parole, but that’s not the norm. Most people admit their guilt and want to work on their issues,” Reamer said.

Sometimes, however, Reamer was fooled or he simply made the wrong call, and a prisoner would reoffend after being released. During his 24 years on the job, he decided on around 25,000 cases and whilst he did not let anyone out to kill again, some criminals committed offenses like domestic violence and assault. Reamer calls such eventualities one of “inherent risks of this kind of work” and a risk we should accept.

“The only way to prevent that happening is to never release anybody,” he said. “It is a fact of life, I’m not happy about it, that some of these are not going to have good endings but on balance a system where people earn their way out of prison ... I truly believe in the long run enhances public safety”.

Reamer says that from his experience, Rhode Island parole board officers were diligent, but across the US the parole system has faced criticism.

A months long investigation by the Marshall Project found that most boards are secretive, unaccountable and overly cautious. A recent update of the Model Penal Code, which is written by respected legal scholars, said that parole boards were “failed institutions”.

Reamer says that he did not think it was fair to make such a sweeping statement because there is a lot of variation within parole boards across the US.

Unlike many other states Rhode Island publishes its parole board minutes and provides data on how many prisoners are being set free each month. But Reamer admits that in his 24 years on the job nobody was fired by the Rhode Island governor, who was technically their supervisor.

“Is there a great deal of room for improvement? Yes. Are some boards too conservative? Yes. Are some risk averse? I’m willing to believe that.”

Another criticism of parole boards is that they are stuffed with friends of the state governors or a reward to big donors.

On this Reamer is his most outspoken. “These are not positions that should be left to the governor’s friends or those who contributed to the campaign. There’s just too much at stake here. It’s unconscionable to appoint people who do not have the expertise, it’s absolutely unconscionable and does it happen? I imagine it does.”