Parole system’s holes can be deadly

Reagan Tokes Act offers a solution

The kidnapping and murder of Reagan Tokes in February exposed serious flaws in how Ohio handles violent criminals, and a series of bills sponsored by Franklin County lawmakers offers some realistic improvements.

House Bill 365 and Senate Bills 201 and 202 would allow the length of sentences for violent felonies to be adjusted according to inmates' behavior and, once they are released, would provide more-effective monitoring of them.

In retrospect, the failures that contributed to Tokes’ murder seem obvious and unacceptable. That doesn’t mean they’ll be simple to fix, but sponsors deserve credit for working with experts, including the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, to offer solutions.

Sponsors include Sens. Kevin Bacon, R-Minerva Park, and Sean J. O’Brien, a Democrat from Bazetta. The House bill is sponsored by Reps. Jim Hughes, R-Upper Arlington, and Kristin Boggs, D-Columbus. Boggs lives about three blocks from where Tokes was taken.

Brian Golsby, who is accused of abducting, raping and murdering the 21-year-old Ohio State University senior, was on parole from another violent sex offense and was wearing an electronic ankle bracelet.

Because of his record of violent and uncooperative behavior in prison, he had been rejected by most of the private prisoner-re-entry programs that contract with the state.

He was caught only because he left a cigarette butt bearing his DNA in Tokes’ car. An afterthe-fact review of his movements via GPS linked him to a series of armed robberies that had terrorized the German Village area.

What sponsors are calling the Reagan Tokes Act would:

■ Make GPS monitoring more effective, by requiring that courts establish boundaries where parolees can and cannot go. Violations of those boundaries would trigger an alert to private companies contracted to monitor people wearing the monitoring devices. It would require the state to create a database of information on parolees being monitored and allow law-enforcement agencies to get information on a parolee’s movements without a subpoena.

■ Allow indeterminate sentences for violent felonies, so that inmates have an incentive to behave better in prison and, just as important, those who, like Golsby, clearly are still a danger to society can be kept in prison longer. The “truth in sentencing” law that eliminated flexiblelength sentences was a reaction to public anger that many inmates served much shorter time than their official sentences, but experience has shown that the flexibility sometimes is necessary. The provision has the support of Department of Rehabilitation and Correction Director Gary Mohr, who said, “It reinforces that how a person acts in prison should count.”

■ Require the state to make some provision for released inmates who are too violent for traditional re-entry programs. It also set maximum workloads for parole officers and requires them to spend more time with the highest-risk cases — critical reforms to an overburdened system.

These fixes likely will be costly, but they are smart and focused. Golsby has pleaded not guilty to an 18-count indictment that includes the robberies and the murder. His case nonetheless illustrates how a flawed parole system could prove fatal.