DOC: Prison Sentences Don't Mean Much

Three-time felons with parole hearings just 18 months after being imprisoned for multiple-year terms.

Convicted drug dealers being assigned to minimum security facilities and being placed on parole dockets having served less than one-fifth of their sentences.

Those are just two examples of how the Oklahoma Department of Corrections handles some prison inmates whose records The McCarville Report Online reviewed after receiving a complaint that one convicted felon, a two-time loser, had been placed on a parole docket just eight months after being incarcerated.

"It's a revolving door at the DOC," one frustrated law enforcement official said after complaining that one inmate he'd helped convict was back on the streets less than two years after his imprisonment on multiple drug possession and drug-dealing charges.

In one case, Inmate X has a record (12 felony convictions) that begins in 1983 with multiple burglary convictions for which he served time. In 1996, he was again convicted, this time on a burglary charge, and was given probation. In 1998, he was convicted of multiple drug possession and drug-dealing charges and served seven years of concurrent 15-year sentences. In late 2007, less than two years after being released from prison, he again was convicted on multiple drug charges and given four concurrent 7-year sentences in Oklahoma County District Court. He was turned over to the DOC in April 2008 and is scheduled for a parole hearing in December 2009, the DOC website shows.

The parole process has disturbed some law enforcement officials and prosecutors for years. They argue that despite sentences handed down by juries and judges, inmates seldom serve anywhere near their full sentences and often win parole having served just fractions of their sentences.

DOC officials have said in the past that the inmate screening process is thorough and every step is taken to make certain dangerous inmates are not released early.

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