Texas Parole Guidelines Annual Report: 2011 Page: 5
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In 1993, the 73rd Legislature directed the Criminal Justice Policy Council (CJPC) to report "at least
annually to the Legislative Criminal Justice Board, the Texas Board of Criminal Justice, and the Texas
Board of Pardons and Paroles on the use of the parole guidelines by each member of the Board in
making parole decision."
After conducting a study of the Board's use of the guidelines, in 1996 CJPC recommended that revised
guidelines be formulated to ensure the guideline criteria reflect Board policy, are applied in a consistent
manner to all candidates for parole (reliable), and are predictive of risk to public safety (valid).
Reliability is a measure of consistency of the Institutional Parole Officers (IPO) to extract and present
the same relevant data to the Board so it can make parole decisions. Validity is a measure of the risk
factors to accurately predict whether or not a candidate for parole falls into a class of offenders who
are either a good, moderate, or poor risk to succeed on parole. Guidelines are able to accomplish these
two objectives by developing scoring instruments that use well-defined measures of risk that have been
shown to be predictive of post release success.
The Board applied to the National Institute of Corrections (NIC) for technical assistance in developing
parole guidelines in 1998. NIC agreedto providetechnical assistance for an initial site visit and assessment.
NIC reported "...to simply update existing guidelines will not increase the viability or effectiveness of
the Board's case decision making and would not bring Texas in line with new approaches that have been
successful in other jurisdictions. A fundamental re-examination and redesign is required."
In 1999, a contract was awarded to Security Response Technologies, Incorporated (SRT). The Board
Chair established a parole guidelines committee to act as the liaison between the Board and the
consultant. Initially, the committee was comprised of seven board members, one from each board
office. Each member was responsible for providing their colleagues with current information regarding
the guidelines initiative, along with soliciting their input as well.
The Board's contract with SRT was an 18-month project divided into three distinct phases:
- Phase I consisted of a comprehensive review of the Board's current practices as well as the
practices of other states that use parole guidelines.
- Phase II activities involved completing a validation test of the existing guidelines along with an
evaluation of the other selected factors that would be used for assessing risk.
- Phase III consisted of training Board and Institutional Parole Officers (IPOs) in the use of the
new guidelines. In September 2001, the Board began using the parole guidelines to assist them
in making parole decisions.
Based on SRT's recommendation, the committee re-reviewed the NCIC offenses initially ranked in
2000, one year after the implementation of the parole guidelines.Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles
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Texas. Board of Pardons and Paroles. Texas Parole Guidelines Annual Report: 2011, report, 2011; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth624409/m1/5/?q=%222010-09-01%2F2011-08-31%22: accessed June 21, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.