Mears acknowledges the state has improved matters, with most prisoners now able to complete treatment one to two years before their discharge date, but that's still a significant barrier to prisoners seeking parole, he said, and limited classroom space at Newton means it's unlikely to improve much further. "We added additional class times throughout the day and trained additional staff to instruct the program, significantly increasing treatment completion numbers," Crawford said in an emailed statement. That effort "allowed the DOC to streamline the implementation" of the sex offender treatment program.
The state has taken steps to improve the situation, starting with the decision to move treatment programs to the Newton facility in 2016, according to spokesman Nick Crawford. "Probably as recent as five years ago, individuals would not complete treatment until they were within zero to six months of the discharge of their sentence," Mears said. In an interview, Mears estimated some of his clients had seen their time in prison extended multiple years because they couldn't get into the treatment program the Board of Parole requires. 'Silent mandatory minimum' can add years to prison terms For an inmate with a longer maximum sentence and a more distant discharge date, that means he will continually be bumped to the back of the list by newly sentenced offenders, even after he might otherwise have been eligible for parole. To organize this backlog, the Department of Corrections gives precedence to men whose discharge date is approaching. More: Former Southeast Polk teacher who filmed sexual abuse of student sentenced to 24 years in prison The program lasts 3-4 months, and the prison has 175 slots at any given time, but there are about 1,600 male inmates on the waiting list across the state. The state offers programming tracks for low- and moderate-risk offenders high-risk offenders offenders with special needs and Spanish speakers, all taking place at the Newton Correctional Facility. Prisoners can be, and very often are, released even before that date at their annual parole reviews, at the discretion of the Iowa Board of Parole.Īlthough the board is not bound by the correction department's parole recommendations, it generally accepts the department's judgment on which prisoners require sex offender treatment, and won't grant parole to any who haven't received it.įor many prisoners, getting into treatment is easier said than done. When someone is sentenced to prison, the Department of Corrections sets their "tentative discharge date," generally to serve about half of their statutory maximum sentence, which can be adjusted based on their conduct in custody. "We emphasize that our job is not to approve or disapprove of how the state allocates resources in the prison system," Justice Edward Mansfield wrote for the majority. "We simply conclude that no constitutional violation has been established." Combination of policies keeps some inmates in limbo But the state prison system has limited capacity to provide this treatment, and a lengthy waiting list, meaning convicted sex offenders likely won't get access to the required programming until shortly before they're due to be released anyway. To be eligible for parole, they must complete sex offender treatment programming. All seven plaintiffs are serving sentences for sex offenses.
The issue before the court involved Iowa's treatment of convicted sex offenders. The court's ruling, issued before Thanksgiving, denied an effort by seven Iowa prisoners to challenge what they described in court filings as a "Catch-22" that forces some inmates to wait far longer than others to complete their sentences.
This article has been updated to correct the name of plaintiffs' attorney Philip Mears.ĭo prisoners have a right to be paroled? And if so, do they have a right to access programming required to be eligible for parole?Īs a new decision from the Iowa Supreme Court shows, there's no easy answer to either question.
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