A Little Rock senator is pushing legislation that would require state prison and parole officials to open their books and provide more public information on offenders.
Known as the Public Safety Transparency and Accountability Act, Senate Bill 617, by Sen. David Sanders, R-Little Rock, would require the Department of Correction, Department of Community Correction and the Parole Board to disclose information including the full criminal histories of state inmates and parolees and the types of trouble the prisoners got into while incarcerated.
The bill, Sanders said, is about giving the public a window into the state's criminal justice system as a way to keep prison and parole officials accountable.
"Without transparency in the criminal justice system, there can be no accountability," Sanders said. "What an inmate does behind bars has been shielded and kept from the public. It's important when it comes to an informed public, having informed policymakers and having informed crime victims."
Currently, the public has some access to information, such as that provided by the Victim Notification Network -- which provides up-to-date statuses on inmates or parolees -- and the state prisons website, which provides inmates' incarceration histories.
SB617 goes further. Under it, prisons, as well as the parole agency and Parole Board, would have to provide information about offenders' disciplinary histories, "risk assessments" and "social histories."
It would also give the public access to information on any court-ordered programs that offenders have completed while incarcerated or under state-released supervision.
In addition, it would require the agencies to post any "relevant research studies and reports" concerning recidivism and other performance measures on a public-accessible website.
"You have distinct organizations at work here. By nature, they tend to be inwardly focused," Sanders said. "What we've seen here is really something that they're all going to have to work together on."
Sanders' bill isn't the only one focusing on accountability. SB472, sponsored by state Sen. Jeremy Hutchinson, R-Little Rock, would create a legislative task force to monitor the progress, best practices and developments of programs -- such as the use of increased alternative courts and new parole programs -- to curb prison recidivism and reduce prison crowding.
"We've seen what happens when there has been a lack of accountability. That's what we've gone through over the past number of years," Sanders said. "It's a step in the right direction for ensuring transparency, quite frankly, on a system that has lacked overall accountability."
But providing so much additional information could pose some challenges, prison officials say.
Dina Tyler, the deputy director of the Department of Community Correction, said her agency has been working with Sanders to address logistical problems that his bill presents.
Some of the information that would be required to be made public -- such as the disposition of no-contact orders on offenders or whether offenders have suspended sentences -- are things the agency doesn't always have, Tyler said.
Some other information, like an inmate's entire criminal history, would be difficult for the agency to provide because the source for that information would be a national database that's intended for use only by law enforcement officials.
"We have to make sure we're not violating any federal law," Tyler said. "That's what our discussions are centered on: what can we legally release and what do we have access to?"
Cathy Frye, a spokesman for the Department of Correction, said her agency has also been working with Sanders, but she said in a statement that there are several parts of the legislation that agency officials find "troubling."
"We do have some concerns about the bill," Frye wrote. "Just one example: Some of what would be made public per this bill is information obtained by our mental health staff. That information is considered a part of an inmate's mental health record and therefore isn't disclosed even on our internal information sharing system."
A call to see how the proposed legislation would affect the state's Parole Board was not returned Friday by the group's head, John Felts.
Sanders said there may be some more tweaks to the legislation.
"The public is footing the bill. We're paying the price for crime, and we're paying the price for incarceration," Sanders said. "I think the taxpayers, the public, have a right to know."
Metro on 03/01/2015