Discourse, Logic, and Decision-Making in Parole Eligibility Hearings

• In Event: Mass Incarceration: Practices, Pre-Trial Detention, and Parole

Abstract

In light of recent policy shifts aimed at decarceration, the process of exiting prison and subsequent supervision has gained importance in the national conversation about reforms in criminal justice policy. With this shift in focus toward the back-end of sentencing, new research is needed to address the decision-making process as prisoners transition out of confinement and back into their communities. New legislation provides mechanisms for sentencing reductions and early release, but it remains unclear whether and how these laws are being incorporated into the discourse of parole hearings and, by extension, impacting subsequent decisions about parole eligibility. Through the content analysis of parole eligibility hearing transcripts, we focus analytic attention on the institutional and cultural logics that frame the discourse during the hearings and the impact that those logics have on the outcome of the case. Based on a review of the literature about criminal justice policy and the legislative process, we expect these logics to include dominant rhetoric surrounding punishment, victim and prisoner rights, managerialism, and risk. By identifying and examining the discursive frameworks of parole board hearings, we address a larger question: how do criminal justice actors reflect, reproduce, and challenge the law as it is written?

Authors

• Kristen Maziarka, University of California, Irvine

• Emma Conner, University of California, Irvine