The Uncharted Influence of Prison Staff Decisionmaking

Abstract

Although parole boards have discretion and responsibility for deciding if and when prison inmates will be released on parole, previous studies of parole decisionmaking have found that the recommendations made by prison staff weigh heavily in parole decisions. In light of these findings it is surprising that the prison recommendation process has not come under greater scrutiny. What contributes to release recommendations made by prison superintendents, whether those recommendations are influenced by those made by lower level prison staff, and the factors shaping the latter, have not yet been explored by criminal justice scholars. It is the purpose of this research to examine parole release recommendations made at the prison decisionmaking stage. Practices followed by prison staff within one large state prison system as they formulated release recommendations for a random sample of 1610 parole applicants were examined. Of these applicants, 58% were recommended for release by unit management teams that operated on the cell block level. Using multi-level modeling it was possible to take into account characteristics related to applicants and prison staff teams, as well as institutions. Observations of decisionmaking teams and conversations with prison staff supplemented and contributed to the interpretation of quantitative findings. Results showed significant variation across teams and institutions in both the probability of an applicant receiving a positive recommendation for release--even after controlling for applicant and decisionmaking attributes--and in the strength of the influence of one applicant attribute: number of misconducts. A strong concordance also was found between recommendations made by lower level prison staff teams and prison superintendents. The findings have implications for prison and parole policies, the relationship between prison personnel and paroling authorities, prison operational procedures, and the perceptions of people who are incarcerated.