North-south disparity seen in paroles of sex offenders

Thursday, Aug. 24, 2000 | 10:30 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- Sex offenders in state prison in Clark County have a better chance of getting paroled than their counterparts in Northern Nevada, a legislative audit shows.

And that opens up the possibility of a lawsuit because of the unequal treatment of inmates.

The audit, released Wednesday, assessed the process for certifying sex offenders for parole consideration.

Before an appearance before the Parole Board, a three-member panel must evaluate and recommend whether the sex offender should be considered for parole. The Parole Board is prohibited from releasing anybody who has not cleared the panel.

An inmate must be certified as "not representing a menace to the health, safety or morals of others."

The examination found different methods of scoring by the panels, which operate without firm rules and have no agency overseeing their activities.

"The percentage of sex offenders certified varies widely among the prison institutions where panel meetings are held," the audit said.

The audit said 39 to 40 percent of inmates evaluated at the Southern Desert Correctional Center near Indian Springs and the Southern Nevada Correctional Center at Jean were certified to appear before the Parole Board.

But at the prison in Lovelock, only 16 percent were certified; at the Nevada State Prison in Carson City it was 12 percent; and at the Northern Nevada Correctional Center in Carson City it was at 31 percent.

"It looks like we could be liable for lawsuits," said Sen. Dean Rhoads, R-Tuscarora, chairman of the Legislative Audit Committee that received the report Wednesday.

Newly appointed Prison Director Jackie Crawford agreed, saying she would work to correct the problem.

About 50 people currently sit on the certification panels, but the prison system is proposing a single panel to travel between prisons.

Auditors found that in some cases a sex offender who denied his crime did not get certified for that reason. But in other cases in another institution, the inmate who also did not admit his offense got favorable treatment.

Pat Hines of Yerington, a representative of the group Nevada Citizens United for the Rehabilitation of Errants, said she has been trying for years to get the parole figures. She called for the repeal of the law that requires certification panels.

The panels "discriminate against only one class of inmates, the sex offender," she said. The decisions by the panels are subjective, Hines said.

"They're acting as judge and jury," Hines said.

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