Expand compassionate parole in state

In Connecticut, 19 people have died from COVID-19 within the prison system. The lack of nuance in the legal code condemned those without death penalty sentences to death.

Connecticut suffers from prison overcrowding, high in-prison deaths and high costs of medical treatment as incarcerated populations grow older — inmate health care alone costs taxpayers $100,000 dollars a year. Medical ethicists claim that prisons cannot provide patient-centered care necessary to keep terminally ill patients alive.

S.B. 460, An Act Concerning Compassionate or Medical Parole and Credits Awarded for Release During an Emergency Declaration, is a step towards solving this financial and ethical problem. Compassionate release, or the shortening of a prisoner's sentence when circumstances such as significant illness or good conduct lessen the need for continued imprisonment, is economically beneficial, does not endanger civilian safety, and is ethically imperative.

This bill would provide necessary opportunities for inmates seeking compassionate release by assuring examination of each case by a release panel, broadening the qualifying characteristics for relief, and establishing protocol in times of emergency. Medical parole, especially during a crisis, is necessary to ensure that inmates are not placed at a higher risk for their health when they themselves pose little risk to society.

Primarily, compassionate release will alleviate costs levied to taxpayers. The lack of broad compassionate release procedures directly increases average age in prisons — by 2030, prisoners over 55 years of age will make up onethird of the Connecticut prison population. As age increases, so does the cost of medical care. Releasing older, medically compromised prisoners would be less costly and prevent prison overcrowding.

S.B. 460 achieves this goal by changing previous language saying release would be awarded once prisoners posed “no danger to society” to “significantly reduced risk to society.” This diminishes the burden of proof needed for inmates to prove they are dangerous, yet still requires inmates to express a significantly decreased community risk.

It is important to note that this poses no increased danger to Connecticut citizens. A Department of Justice review found prisoners released from compassionate parole to have a recidivism rate of 3.1 percent, compared to 30 percent of prisoners released on term. A threeperson panel, as stated in S.B. 460, would assess individual cases for societal danger, providing an extra layer of protection. More generally, medically debilitated inmates would not have the physical capability to reoffend.

Most fundamentally, this new method of assessment of risk in times of emergency can save lives. The executive director of the Connecticut Board of Pardons and Paroles noted that current compassionate release “statutory criteria were not drafted to handle a virus such as this.” We must allow prisoners to avoid the higher rates of COVID-19 than the rest of Connecticut present within prisons. To needlessly put inmates at risk negates their humanity and right to life.

Less restrictive requirements for compassionate release are present in many other states. Vermont allows release if a medical condition renders the inmate “unlikely to be physically capable of presenting a danger to society.” Utah directly applies the “significantly reduced risk” standard by mentioning a lowering of recidivism rates. More recently, New Jersey implemented a bill in light of the COVID-19 pandemic that allowed people with less than a year left on their sentences to be released up to eight months early.

The Connecticut legislature is moving in the right direction. In 2021, the Senate similarly voted to expand eligibility for compassionate parole. However, the bill was not voted on by the House. This session, the Connecticut General Assembly has the opportunity to truly save lives and fix inherent flaws in the carceral system by passing S.B. 460. There is no time to waste.