Who gets to go home? Examining the correlates of parole release for the elderly and non-elderly

ABSTRACT

Concerns over state and federal correctional budgets and the motivation to undo decades of mass incarceration have placed the institution of parole under the spotlight. While there is research on the correlates of parole decision-making, there has not been much examination of whether these correlates vary by age group. A critical segment of the incarcerated population is comprised of the elderly. For this reason, we draw on a sample of written parole board decisions from one state from the years 2015 through 2020 to examine whether the correlates of parole decisions vary by candidate’s age at the time of their parole hearings. Our findings demonstrate that age alone does not matter but influences decision-making when accounting for specific covariates. Evidence of rehabilitation remains the strongest indicator of parole release, though there is variation in the type of evidence that matters for the elderly versus the non-elderly. We suggest that with a better understanding of how age is related to decision-making, parole candidates will be able to draw on their age-based capacities to make an effective case for release.

KEYWORDS:

• Parole
• decision-making
• age
• elderly

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to Dvir Yogev for his insightful comments on an earlier version of this paper. We also want to thank several parole scholars whose feedback during a writing workshop in April 2022 helped strengthen this manuscript. Thank you to the editor and reviewers for their thoughtful comments and suggestions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Due to ongoing projects with the Board, the state has been de-identified per their request.

2. The model fit tests for our logistic regression models supported the use of a dichotomous measure for time served instead of a continuous measure.

3. We also ran a logistic regression model with age as a continuous variable, where age was not associated with release (not shown here, available upon request).

4. We ran other interaction terms with elderly status including a category for number of prior hearings, rehabilitation index, and time served, but this current model was the best fitted model in terms of effect sizes and model fit tests.

Additional information

Funding

The data collection and analyses for this study were supported by the SHSU Larry Hoover Summer Research Fellowship, awarded to Beatriz Amalfi Wronski in May 2021.