Victims of parole
Some aim to abolish system to prevent future violent crimes
By Doug Pardue , Glenn Smith
The Post and Courier
Debbie Spry, mother of murder victim Travis Spry, sits at his grave in Live Oak Memorial Gardens in West Ashley. She says she talks to him 'like he was standing there' during her regular visits to the cemetery.
The Post and Courier
Christopher Bryant (center) was sentenced in August 2007 to 13 years in prison for being an accessory to murder in the killing of 17-year-old Travis Spry in Charleston. Bryant, 23, applied for parole in June but was denied.
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The daunting task of policing criminals on probation and parole.
Debbie Spry gently ran her hand across her only son's grave marker, her eyes welling with tears as she stared at his smiling photo. Travis had been such a big-hearted kid, just 17 when he was strangled in Charleston for some car stereo speakers.
Last year, Spry watched as Travis' boyhood friend, who set him up for the killing, received a 13-year sentence as an accessory to murder. Then, in utter disbelief, she found herself fighting to keep him in prison after he became eligible for parole just 10 months later.
Spry won that battle, but she doesn't kid herself. There will be more parole hearings to come, more chances for this man to get out of prison early.
"Why does he get a break?" she said, and glanced down at Travis' grave through misty eyes. "My son will never get out of here."
If state Attorney General Henry McMaster gets his way, future victims and their families won't have to deal with these perennial hearings and endless uncertainty. He wants to abolish parole in South Carolina and is criss-crossing the state to build support.
"No more parole; no loopholes; no exception." McMaster pounds that message in speeches. He would release convicts only after they serve at least 85 percent of their sentences, if they behave in prison.
If his proposal passes, McMaster promises it also will be "the last day you will ever read of a criminal committing a crime and then later committing another one while on parole."
Some, however, remain leery of the proposal, citing a mixed bag of results with similar plans in other states. For example, when Florida abolished parole in the 1980s and took a hard line on sentencing, its prisons exploded with inmates. The federal courts stepped in and ordered the state to release inmates early, sending Florida back to the drawing board.
McMaster says South Carolina needs to give it a try anyway and that the state has no shortage of tragic incidents with parolees to illustrate why.
Consider the case of Joseph Atkins, who went on a shooting spree in North Charleston in October 1985. Armed with a sawed-off shotgun and a machete, he stalked into a neighbor's home and fatally shot a 13-year-old girl in the head as she slept before gunning down his 75-year-old father.
Fifteen years before the killings, Atkins was handed a life prison sentence for fatally shooting his 23-year-old half-brother. He served just 10 years for that crime before the parole board set him free.
Such incidents prompted South Carolina to do away with parole for many violent offenders in 1996, requiring that murderers, robbers, rapists and their ilk serve at least 85 percent of their sentences. But that still leaves a host of other "nonviolent" criminals still eligible for early release, including stalkers, accessories to murder, some child molesters and others.
McMaster's plan simply would abolish parole across the board. To lessen the impact on the state's prisons, he teams his parole ban with a proposal to create a "Middle Court," where judges would handle nonviolent criminals with a carrot-and-stick approach. It would be similar to the present probation system, except with more direct court control and swift punishment if criminals mess up.
Does no parole work?
Other states have tried similar plans, with varying success.
Ronald F. Wright, a professor of law and associate dean at Wake Forest University, said 20 or so states and the federal government have abolished parole in one way or another. Most, he said, also adopted some form of sentencing reform to encourage judges to impose equitable and shorter sentences. That's necessary, he said, to adjust for the fact that parole can no longer be used as a relief valve to balance prison populations.
McMaster says guidelines or changes in sentencing laws aren't necessary. He thinks judges naturally will lower sentences if parole is abolished.
Wright cautions that relying on judges without guidelines or sentencing changes could be risky for the state's prison system. "Think of this as a bathtub," he said. The prisoners flow in through the faucet and out through the drain. If states lock up people longer and don't change sentencing, "your tub's going to fill up quickly." Then you have to ask the question: "Do you need a bigger tub?"
That's the case in Florida, which still is struggling with what to do despite sentencing reform and expanded prisons.
Connecticut had a similar experience and ended up reinstituting parole in 1994. But the grisly murder last year of a prominent doctor's family prompted the governor to suspend parole for violent offenders. In the end, reform measures prevailed rather than a return to abolition.
Will prisons overflow?
South Carolina Corrections Department Director Jon Ozmint contends that a parole ban in the state would repeat missteps by other states and expose the overburdened prison system to ruin.
"To do something we know will add 12,000 new prisoners to the system in the next 19 years is an invitation to real disaster," he said. "You simply could not fit that many inmates in the prisons we have. If you did, you will end up with a lot of dead bodies on your hands."
However, in Virginia, where parole was abolished and non-binding sentencing guidelines were established in 1994, officials said the state has seen a significant drop in the rate of increase of the prison population. In the decade before the reform, Virginia's prison population jumped more than 150 percent.
In the decade since, the increase was about 30 percent, nearly the same as the state's increase in population.
Rick Kern, director of Virginia's Criminal Sentencing Commission, said the state's crime rate is the "lowest in 30 years" and the number of violent criminals who re-enter a life of crime after prison is down.
South Carolina State Sen. Robert Ford, a Democrat from Charleston, says the state's system is fine as is. The main need, Ford said, is for more judges to try criminals who are out on bail, committing more crimes while awaiting trial.
Dwayne M. Green, a state parole board member from the Charleston area, said abolishing parole would be a big mistake. "Parole and probation offer the best way to govern and regulate prison populations." Many of the people paroled are about to max-out on their sentences anyway, and without parole there's no way to keep a level of control over them, he said.
Asked what he would say to the victims of criminals who commit violent crimes when paroled, he replied, "My heart goes out to them. ... We all want a system that's perfect, but it's difficult whenever you have to deal with crime."
Momentum might be on McMaster's side.
McMaster enjoys key support in the Republican-led state Legislature, where House Speaker Bobby Harrell and Senate President Pro Tem Glenn McConnell, both of Charleston, say they favor the concept of abolishing parole and finding alternatives to incarceration for nonviolent criminals.
Harrell promises to begin pushing McMaster's bills in January "and get them through fast. ... I want to get it done."
The aftermath
To Debbie Spry, who lost her son Travis three years ago, the debate is about more than numbers and strategies. It's about justice for a good life taken at far too young an age.
Travis went out of his way to help others and worked hard for every penny he had. He put in long hours at a North Charleston Waffle House to earn money for his prized possession, a fire-engine-red Pontiac Bonneville. He died in that car, choked to death by a young ex-con who had been granted an early release from prison just 84 days earlier. Travis Lavar Casey had served less than two years of a six-year youthful offender sentence on five counts of burglary and two counts of grand larceny.
Travis Spry's body was left in a wooded dump in Dorchester County. By the time he was found, his family didn't have a whole body to bury because of decomposition and scavenging animals. People who would do that to another human being don't deserve to go free, Debbie Spry says.
"Why should they get another chance at life?" she said. "My son will forever be 17 in a box in the ground."
Tormented memories
Charleston had always been home for Christan Rainey (above), even after he moved to Louisiana for college.
But home now carries tormented memories of the late September day two years ago when he learned that his mother, three younger brothers and sister had been shot to death. Michael Anthony Simmons, the man his mother married a year earlier, was charged with killing them.
Rainey, an aspiring marine biologist, never really liked Simmons but tolerated him because his mom "seemed like she was happy." Still Rainey had reservations and couldn't help but notice the jealousy Simmons seemed to harbor toward him because of his closeness to his mother and his three brothers and 6-year-old baby sister.
Part of Rainey's hesitation stemmed from Simmons' violent criminal history. He served 16 years in prison on convictions for armed robbery, assault and battery with intent to kill and burglary. When he was paroled in 2004, he still had 8 years hanging over him.
Rainey wonders about a parole system that allows violent criminals to leave jail early but knows that it has helped turn some into useful citizens.
But should Simmons have been freed? Rainey answers without hesitation: "I feel like the crime that he did, he shouldn't have been out of jail."
Justice for whom?
Years have passed since Sandi Wofford lost her sister in the winter of 1984. But she recalls the late night phone call from police, the disbelief, the pain that consumed her world.
Her sister, Rhonda Smith, worked at a Dorchester Road convenience store when she was robbed and abducted by a twice-paroled felon who had been convicted of attempted armed robbery.
Leroy Joseph Drayton took the 19-year-old single mother to an abandoned railroad trestle above an inlet leading to the Cooper River. There, he shot her between the eyes and watched her body tumble 20 feet to the rocks below.
Wofford's grief turned to anger when she learned Drayton had been paroled. If he had been made to serve his full sentence on the holdup charge, her sister likely would be alive, she said.
"He was a bad person and he committed a crime. Why did they allow him out?" she said. "This made all of us understand that what we thought the criminal justice system was just wasn't true."
Her sister's killing inspired Wofford, then a Ladson homemaker, to get involved in the fight for crime victims' rights. She volunteered with Citizens Against Violent Crime, served as a Republican lawmaker from 1987 to 1996 and helped spur passage of a victims' bill of rights in the Legislature.
Since 1997, Wofford has worked as a victim's advocate for the attorney general's office in Columbia. Though state laws have been strengthened since her sister's death to make if harder for violent criminals to win parole, she still sees far too many people victimized by repeat offenders who should have been behind bars.
When she looks into the eyes of the victims and their families, Wofford sees herself many years ago.
"They had the same idea of the criminal justice system as I did back then," she said. "But it's not the victims' justice system. It's the criminals' justice system."
Reach Glenn Smith at gsmith@postandcourier.com or 937-5556. Reach Doug Pardue at 937-5558 or dpardue@postandcourier.com.
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Comments
auger (anonymous) says...
Well said Thomas1776.
August 28, 2008 at 5:20 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
moonpie (anonymous) says...
Day 3 of the democratic convention and again nothing on this in the P&C? What a bunch of idiots.
August 28, 2008 at 6:13 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
DanniD (anonymous) says...
These criminals should never have the chance to be free again...maybe if they realized they never would recieve a chance for parole, these criminals might think twice.
Right now most know that they may recieve some sort of sentence, but that eventually they will be elgible for parole. So they figure what the heck, let me go ahead and commit this crime. I spend a couple of years behind bars, and then I will be back out again.
August 28, 2008 at 6:42 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
wonderdog (anonymous) says...
If my taxes have to go up to build more prisons, I'm ok with that. Criminals are not afraid of our criminal justice system in its current state.
I do believe, however, that we could cut a large amount of wasteful spending and build more prisons without raising taxes, but we all know that......
August 28, 2008 at 7:15 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
traumajunkie (anonymous) says...
Maybe we should just go back to the old days of an eye for an eye. If you kill someone then you too shall be killed. And I dont mean that you will spend 15 years on death row. I mean the moment you are sentenced to death you should be taken from the courtroom and executed immediately. This would solve the overpopulation of prisons plus make people think twice about taking an innocent life. I dont understand how someone can murder and then be allowed back in public at all. Doesnt make any sense. Child molesters and rapist should be given to the largest meanest biggest d*** SOB in the prison system and then we will kill you. Thiefs will have their hand cut off and so on and so forth. Look at the crime rate in singapore. Its low, because they dont play. The best example of this is the american teenager that went there and vandilized something and was publically caned. Americans went crazy over this; saying that it was cruel and unusual punishment. Nut I bet if you ask that kid he will NEVER vandilize anything ever again.
August 28, 2008 at 8:01 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
Southern_Cousin (anonymous) says...
Yes, and let's build prisons with 8 x 10 cells, no air-conditioning,no televisions, no weight rooms or other luxories. Make the inmates do hard labor.
Quit making jail a "nice comfortable place" for criminals to go and maybe they will think twice before they do things that will get them there.
And any parole official who plans to release a dangerous violent "rehabilitated" criminal into society should have to spend the night with him in a hotel room first. I can't believe how irresponsible our public officials are. The stories here just make me so angry.
August 28, 2008 at 8:13 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
coahtrtaylor (anonymous) says...
Maybe we should hold the parole board responsible by some type of monetary compensation when they grant parole to a violent offender that re-commits. Think they might dig a little deeper into the past of the offender and think harder on their decision if they knew they would be held accountable?
I realize this is a far fetched idea, but they should be held accountable for releasing these animals back on society.
August 28, 2008 at 8:40 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
southerngirl45 (anonymous) says...
Once a dog bites it will bite again.Keep these animals locked up and if you have to build more prisons so be it.
August 28, 2008 at 8:48 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
coolfreaknbeans (anonymous) says...
coahtrtaylor-I understand your point.Judges and parole board members should be held more accountable for the animals they release into our neighborhoods.Would they let them move in next door to them?I doubt it.But that accountability will not likely happen.I would be perfectly fine with my tax money going for no frills prisons.
August 28, 2008 at 8:53 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
MsPiggy (anonymous) says...
I agree with Southern Cousin.
There was this huge spread in the PnC months ago about the 'conditions' of the Charleston County Detention Center.
Well I'm sorry, but last I heard the prison was not meant to cater to your needs. Maybe if we pulled the plug on all the luxury items in the prison, we could afford to expand and have more room for inmates. I believe in hard manual labor. Put em' on a chain gang!
Weight rooms in a prison???
Why?? So those dudes can get nice and strong so when they get out they can commit more crimes being 2 times as intimidating and vicious? PLEASE!!!
August 28, 2008 at 8:54 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
willie08 (anonymous) says...
so, the new's paper proposes to eliminate bail. hmm..
well, I kind of agree that bail has its faults, but not exactly what we are talking about above.
The whole system is based on enslaving the human to a degree.
For non violent crimes, we should say the system is an overkill. I think the system of making drugs illegal puts normal law abiding citizens at risk of despoilment.
If you grow a plant, and use it, or buy it, or sell it you are not breaking a law in my opinion. But you will in most states (13 are now practically allowing MJ) be arrested. Not only thrown in jail, but your friends and family will be enslaved by the debt of bail (in most cases the police profit from the money, the tax that "would have been collected for 20lbs of MJ goes to the dept.). If we make MJ legal we will have plenty of room for violent criminals in the prisons, so.....
August 28, 2008 at 9:26 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
SkyBlue (anonymous) says...
My heart goes out to Debbie Spry and the other victim's families. It's a shame that this country is in such a crisis. I think it all starts with bad parenting of these criminals. From kids that are ignored and left to raise themselves with the influence of gangs and thugs to the overindulged kids who get their fun from robbing people with fake guns. The parents then whine in the press about how unfair it is when their so called "good kids" are sentenced appropriately for their crimes.
The criminal system is then left to correct the behavior of criminals essentially trying to instill values in them that should have been part of their upbringing by punishing them and turning them loose on society hoping that they change.
August 28, 2008 at 9:33 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
WSM (anonymous) says...
"The federal courts stepped in and ordered the state to release inmates early, sending Florida back to the drawing board."
This is why the states will always have a problem tending to their own business. Home rule effectively ended in 1865, and IF the state legislatures want federal funding, they had best do what they are told.
This is a nationwide problem. I agree that we need to be humane towards prisoners, and that gulags aren't the answer, but why in the world should a convicted felon get cable TV when I had to cut my service just to meet a household budget to support my wife and 2 children? Why should I pay to have gyms for convicted felons when I can't afford a gym membership? At least push ups, situps, and chinups are still free! I constantly hear from Corrections lackeys that this is needed in order to maintain control of the prison population.
Really? I thought that is why we had weapons qualification for LE Officers at the S.C. Criminal Justice Academy.
But...you let a prison in the South respond to a serious disturbance with lethal force, the feds will be all over that state so quickly you couldn't say "reconstruction" fast enough. The usual accusations of "racism" and "segregation" will surface, with the standard fishing expeditions to find or create evidence will be taking place, and the feds will wind up in control of the state's prisons
After all...the federal system is the best around. Look at the sterling examples of federal competence in handling the standoffs at Waco and Ruby Ridge, and the CIA handling of 9/11. Sleep well, America. Your federal government is on the job!
August 28, 2008 at 9:34 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
JC (anonymous) says...
GET A BIGGER TUB! No parole. No lighter sentences.
August 28, 2008 at 9:39 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
lmh1991 (anonymous) says...
I agree why should we care on making the prisons cozy for these criminals. Who cares if it is overcrowed. Some criminals are put out on the street and they commit more crimes so they can go back to jail and get free food, free place to stay, free education(they can study law too), free.....
August 28, 2008 at 9:43 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
ChasCarolinaGirl (anonymous) says...
...and who was the idiot who said that these people have rights or should have rights? Clearly you are not a Mother b/c I would do everything in my will to make sure the person who killed my child, even as an accessory never had his rights ever again!!!!
August 28, 2008 at 10:29 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
jeff61 (anonymous) says...
Free to them,, yes , but remember,, we the Tax Payers are paying for it. The same people these animals victimize time and time again
August 28, 2008 at 11:43 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
elcid81 (anonymous) says...
SC should follow the state of Virginia's lead by abolishing parole. Think of the tax savings by eliminating the need for large parole and probation offices. The last few days, there have been numerous articles on tracking probation and parole violators in the P/C. Think of the wasted manhours and taxpayer dollars. I applaud the State of VA for protecting and serving their taxpayers. My heart goes out to familes who have lost loved ones due to our "system". How can these Judges sleep?
August 28, 2008 at 11:48 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
coolfreaknbeans (anonymous) says...
I think it's funny when reporters ask people who work for the parole board if they think it should be abolished.Hello? What do you think they're gonna say?You might as well ask,"Do you wanna lose your job?" lol
August 28, 2008 at 11:50 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
Time4action (anonymous) says...
Abolish Parole. Parole hearings are constant pain for victims. A sentence is a sentence and should be carried out to it's fullest. Who cares if they have to sleep on the floor (or walls and beds can be added to the weight room). Who cares if they have to share a TV or eat less food. What ever the expense is, we can find a way to keep them locked up. It's time we put the victims rights above the criminals.
August 28, 2008 at 1:40 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
fyrefighter273 (anonymous) says...
From what I read it is agreed that prisons need to be tough, we need to take away the frills, I have worked inside for 20 years, I am not a "guard" as so many of you have phrased the term for correctional officers (tells me mostif not everybody posting is an outsider), I am a manager so I am informed about the ways of budgets, popular politic and the courts. Parole is a mess, no brainer there is it? Prisons are too easy, time for a change? Look at your prison system, is it accredited by the ACA? If so then you as a taxpayer are sanctioning the items you are complaining about typically that is called quality of life issues, you are paying for that in a major way (more than you realize). California is a good example of taking the gyms for housing inmates. Y'all also have to realize the courts are rampant with the lawsuits filed against us for violations of liberty (as mentioned in the constitution) the last lawsuit against me personally mentioned violation of civil rights, deprived of liberty because I did my job in accordance with the law, the judge dismissed it as frivilous but the taxpayers had to foot the bill. Remember that federal judges are appointed, how many right wing judges will Obama appoint? What will it be like then? Try to abolish parole, it is a political tool that no canidate wants to eleminate, don't you know the men and women on the parole board donate to campagins? Parole boards and correctional systems are places many politicians will appoint minorities to the higher level positions. Get to know the facts about the correctional system, start complaining at the voting booth, state house and any other civil way you can. Till them my hands are tied!
August 28, 2008 at 7:30 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
JJRPAS (anonymous) says...
Blackstone - Writing positive stories does not sell newspapers. Smith and the P&C realize "scaring people" sells papers. The statistics tell the story - Probation and parole are extremely successful, especially in South Carolina. Smith searched the entire country to provide a few examples where people, who happen to be on parole committed heinous crimes. If you use Judge Hughston as an example, he is a retired Judge, who has likely placed 30,000+ people on probation, has not had a single one of them commit a violent crime after being placed on probation. This article leaves one thinking just the opposite is occuring (untrue). The solution is sentencing violent people to proper sentences from the beginning, not discarding the programs that have proven so successful in this state. The system should be improved, not discarded.
Posted by blackstone on August 28, 2008 at 10:06 a.m.
I have always said that no criminal law has ever been passed based upon accurate statistical information. The comments to this story only reinforce that opinion. The Probation and Parole Office is a successful state agency. According to the South Carolina Criminal and Juvenile Justice Trends in 2007 only 13.5% of those on probation violated their probation. That is am 86.5% success rate. And when you consider that those violations include violations of the rules and not just new crimes it is even more impressive. In 2004 10.4% of the violations were for other than new crimes. Total violations for that year were 11.8%. I do not ask you to take my word for it. Read it for yourself. http://www.scdps.org/ojp/statistics.asp
When you learn that in the 90's when the probation officer to client ratio was lower, the revocation rate was lower, Judge Hughston is correct. We need more officers. Probation is cheaper than incarceration and it works. What more could one ask for.
August 28, 2008 at 8:04 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
christinader (anonymous) says...
I have no problem paying taxes to keep scum off of the streets. The reason crimes continue to be committed---lack of fear of God and the justice system. If all you get is a slap on the wrist why would you fear going back to prison? Perhaps the best solution is to practice what other countries do. You steal--you lose your hand. You rape--you lose your weapon. You kill-well you figure it out. Am I radical? Definately not! What is the crime rate in these countries? Check it out for yourself and you will find extremely very low. The majority of crime committed in this country starts at home with parenting. I watched an interview today on Oprah Winfrey. I was pleasantly surprised to hear Bill Cosby say the same thing. If we as parents do not take responsibilty for our children and raise them correctly then we are already determining the destiny of this country. He stated...It's not what the people are doing to you...It is what you are doing to yourself. Bring back two parent homes (married), bring back having sex not as an animalistic ritual but as a demonstration of love, bring back shunning those who get pregnant as a teen not encouraging it and being proud of it. If we set the bar high we will not fail. We would see a turn around in this country. You know I may not be voting for Obama....But he makes many good points. I think he understands some of the main problems in this country and maybe if he is elected he can encourage change. So this is my 3 cents! Like it our not, this is how I feel!
August 28, 2008 at 8:32 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
iceman1978 (anonymous) says...
I miss Turkey. They knew how to treat criminals over there.
August 28, 2008 at 11:07 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
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