Excerpt

Introduction

There are over thirty-five thousand inmates in California serving life sentences with the possibility of parole—over a quarter of the entire state prison population. For these inmates, the sentencing phase does not end with a judge in the courtroom. Instead, their freedom depends on an affirmation by the Board of Parole Hearings (“the board”) that they are suitable for release from prison. The board holds tremendous discretionary power over inmates’ lives, determining whether or not they will die in prison. Yet relatively little is known about the decision-making process. Final deliberations among the parole commissioners are held in private, with only the final decision revealed. Hearings are open only to the victim’s family and, with permission, members of the press. However, the transcripts from California parole hearings are publicly available.

This chapter uses machine text processing to analyze over eight thousand transcripts (the population of transcripts from hearings held between 2011 and 2014) to provide a window into this relatively invisible and understudied process.

The central question before the board is whether the inmate poses an unreasonable risk of danger to society if released from prison. The board has extensive latitude in making this determination. They may consider “all relevant, reliable information available to the panel” (Cal. Code Regs., tit. 15, §2281). The board’s assessment includes paper files indicating the offense for which the inmate was committed, the inmate’s psychological risk assessment score, their prison record, and letters of support. Beyond these facts on paper, the board also holds a hearing, typically lasting two to three hours. In the words of the Board of Parole Hearings executive officer Jennifer Shaffer, this is the board’s opportunity to try to understand, “Who were you then? Who are you today, and what’s the difference?”

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