Failure with Garrido prompts legislative effort to reform parole
By Sam Stanton, Sacramento Bee
With the Phillip Garrido fiasco as a backdrop, legislative and law enforcement leaders today agreed to work toward preventing a similar one.
In a public meeting at the state Capitol convened by state Sen. Ted Gaines, R-Roseville, and El Dorado County District Attorney Vern Pierson, officials discussed the failures that led to Jaycee Lee Dugard remaining Garrido’s captive for 18 years and offered ideas on how to improve supervision of sex offenders.
Gaines said he plans to introduce legislation soon to address a state Supreme Court decision from 2008 that he and Pierson say has created a spike in the number of inmates serving life sentences who are winning release from parole boards.
That decision held that a parole board may not base a decision on whether to release an inmate solely upon the circumstances of the crime that sent the inmate to prison. Because of that decision, from 2008 through 2010, 1,329 lifers have been granted parole, Pierson said, compared to 1,821 from 1978 through 2007.
Pierson contends that the law needs to be changed to allow parole boards to consider not only psychiatric and other reports on an inmate’s behavior but also the nature of the crime.
Gaines said he believes such a change in the law can win widespread support.
All the new laws in the world won’t help prevent another innocent child from being abducted and tortured, so long as nobody is held accountable for failing to do their job.
It’s easy to pass a new law, but there are already plenty of tough laws on the books. The bigger issue here is the hideous failures of the system and those who are paid to enforce the current laws.
We would be much more impressed and appreciative if Senator Gaines and Mr. Pierson would focus on who screwed up in the Dugard case, who needs to resign, and who should get fired.