By Landis Reynolds, currently incarcerated at Westville Correctional Facility
In March of 2014, the Indiana Legislature passed HEA 1140, later codified under Indiana Code 11-8-2-12.4(6), mandating the Indiana Dept. of Correction (DOC) to “create policies that provide for a schedule of progressive parole incentives and violation sanctions, including judicial review procedures”. The Legislature further mandated the Indiana Parole Board (IPB) to review and approve these policies under Indiana Code 11-9-1-2.
HEA 1140 was enacted in direct response to the due process violations and systematic abuses committed by DOC and the IPB in the capricious, arbitrary reincarceration of inmates who had completed their executed sentences and were struggling to rebuild their lives. A precise schedule of progressive parole sanctions would require parole agents to use community-based discipline for minor technical violations, such as community service, finex, personal development classes or short-term community corrections placements. The goal of HEA 1140 was to foster accountability without impeding continued reformation and successful re-entry.
Prior to the Legislature’s mandate, DOC and the IPB had absolute authority to revoke a person’s parole and reincarcerate them, sometimes for decades, based on minor technical violations such as forgetting to report a change of address or job. Parolees subject to revocation found themselves at the mercy of vindictive parole agents frequently motivated by superiors to seize, or even manufacture, the first opportunity to reincarcerate them. The absence of a defined schedule of progressive parole sanctions allowed the IPB to summarily revoke their parole, and the lack of judicial review procedures allowed them to do so with impunity. History has consistently proved “absolute power corrupts absolutely”.
DOC responded by passing the buck to individual parole districts to create unofficial ” community-based intermediate sanctions”. IDOC Policy 03-03-101 (XIII).
It was a deliberate attempt to circumvent and nullify the mandate of the Legislature in order to retain absolute, unchecked authority in parole revocations. If the DOC developed a specific administrative policy governing progressive parole sanctions, any violations or abuses on behalf of DOC could be challenged and remedied by an Action for Mandate under Indiana Code 34-27-3-1. By allowing individual parole districts to develop informal progressive parole sanctions absolute authority was retained by the very officials abusing their authority through Ulterior Reincarceration. Further, through the adoption of informal procedures, DOC defied the legislative requirement to create judicial review procedures, knowing that Indiana Code 4-21.5-2-5 (6) precludes judicial review of informal administrative actions related to inmates within the jurisdiction of DOC.
In order to truly grasp the gravity of the situation we must understand two things: 1) correctional facilities are not conducive to reformation; 2) reformation is not the mission of the Indiana Dept. of Correction.
Contrary to popular belief, there is scarcely anything reformative about the correctional setting. Every facility is rife with violence, overflowing with narcotics, and antagonistic. Each day is a literal struggle for survival mentally, physically, and morally. It is a true testament to the strength and character of every man and woman who successfully completes their term of incarceration and is released to parole supervision. It is after they are released that the criminal indoctrination and systematic attacks on their value cease and true, meaningful reformation begins.
Covid-19 has demonstrated the power of contagious illness. Just as Covid is transmitted person to person in compromised environments so are addiction, failure, and self-defeating thinking patterns within the correctional setting.
Once an individual has survived the horrors of prison and is released to society where they have begun to rebuild their fractured lives, ulterior reincarceration serves only to reinfect them, not reform them.
The term ‘department of correction’ is a misnomer. The mission of DOC is not correction or reformation. IDOC’s official slogan is “employees, efficiency, effectiveness”. The goal is efficient, cost-effective incarceration under a for-profit business model. In recent years we’ve seen the Indiana prison population balloon to 27,000 inmates, the highest in Indiana history. Virtually every DOC facility has been mandated to increase its bed capacity, with some facilities going as far as converting storage and sanitation closets into rooms to house inmates.
The increase is not due to an explosion in crime as officials would like you to believe. It is due to a financially motivated, focused reincarceration campaign on behalf of DOC, facilitated by the parole division. DOC receives a reported thirty-one thousand dollars for the annual support of each inmate. During a recent conversation with a DOC administrator I heard figures as high as forty-three to forty-six thousand per year. Only a fraction of those funds are actually used to support each offender. With over twenty-seven thousand inmates, this translates to nearly 840 million dollars in annual revenue generated simply by acquiring and keeping inmates. This doesn’t take into account the revenue generated through corporate partnerships with for-profit companies such as Aramark, GTL, Wexford and Union Supply, to name a few. Nor does it take into account the profits made for Indiana Correctional Industries, which operates state-sanctioned sweatshops in every state facility.
An increased prison population offers increased profit potential under a for-profit correctional business model.
Society views inmates as economic liabilities, although, in truth, their very purpose in the system is to serve as economic assets. From the moment parolees are released into society they cease to be economic assets for the State of Indiana. Their freedom and reformation limits or prevents their economic exploitation. The continued, unfettered ability to reincarcerate reformed parolees based on minor technical violations fuels financially motivated, ulterior reincarceration to the detriment of working-class families and communities.
Real Life Effect of Ulterior Reincarceration
Jerry “Faheem” Smith was incarcerated at age fifteen. For nineteen years, he endured the nightmares of incarceration in some of Indiana’s worst prisons. Despite the odds stacked against him, in January of 2018 he was released to parole supervision. He then began the tall order of building a life in a world that had drastically changed.
With assistance from friends, Smith created F.O.C.U.S, a nonprofit organization created to assist those transitioning back into society after incarceration in their successful reentry. The true nature of an individual is revealed during times of adversity. He took the lemons of life and made lemonade. He was also a vocal advocate for prisoner rights, frequently protesting for much needed prison reforms.
In January of 2019, after a productive year, Smith’s parole was revoked for multiple alleged technical violations. Following a perfunctory hearing, he was thrown back in prison for inadvertently missing a parole check in and having innocuous
communications with inmates. It is worthy of noting Smith’s job description for F.O.C.U.S required him to communicate with inmates to coordinate provisions for their successful reentry. It is also peculiar that his parole was revoked after he became increasingly critical of the DOC, and the appalling realities of incarceration. Nonetheless, he remains in prison…
Each day his talents and potential squandered, not because he committed a new crime or presented a danger to society, but because he was a greater financial asset behind bars.
Devon Bell served twelve years in the Indiana Dept. of Correction. After years of successfully avoiding the minefields of addiction, violence and failure, Bell was released to parole supervision. He left prison with nothing but the clothes on his back and a determination to succeed. Bell defied the statistics. He began working two jobs: one, to pay the fees associated with reentry; and the other to fund putting the pieces of his life back together.
After continued positive progress, Bell’s parole agent ordered him to seek mental health treatment at a behavioral treatment center with a for-profit contract with DOC. While Indiana law allows imposition of additional parole conditions, “these conditions must be reasonably related to the parolees successful reintegration into the community and not unduly restrictive…” Bell has never suffered from mental illness of any sort, nor did his behavior following release suggest maladjustment mentally. He struggled to adhere to this new arbitrary mandate. His mental health meetings frequently conflicted with his work schedule, leaving him in the precarious position of risking losing his employment, a guaranteed technical violation, or missing a mental health appointment. Despite voicing these concerns to his parole agent and attempting to find a solution to the scheduling conflict, he was violated for missing a mental health appointment and allegedly having a verbal altercation with his live-in girlfriend. Bell remains incarcerated, working at Correctional Industrial Facility’s Brake Shop in dirty, squalid conditions for mere dollars a day, financially supporting DOC’s profit agenda instead of his family.
For nearly a century the full measure of the law has been weaponized against minority and working class communities. The legal system is a double edged sword. We cannot allow good men and women to continue to be abducted from our communities as they struggle to reconstruct and improve the fractured pieces of their lives. Ulterior Reincarceration ensures promising men and women remain broken. Ulterior Reincarceration ensures broken homes remain broken, and mothers and fathers remain absent. Ulterior Reincarceration ensures the beautiful, intricate puzzle of our community remains incomplete by removing the pieces that matter most. It contributes to crime, not prevents it.
In order to stop these economically motivated abductions, we must take united action. Call Representative Mahan, who authored HEA 1140, and Rep. Wendy McNamara who serves on the Joint Interim Study Committee on Corrections and the Criminal Code, and tell them DOC continues to defy the mandates of HEA 1140. Demand that progressive parole incentives and violation sanctions be codified under Indiana Law, not informal administrative policy. Demand that judicial review procedures also be codified under Indiana law to maintain checks and balances on ulterior incarceration and the economic weaponization of the Indiana parole system.