Editorial: Tougher position on parole

Tuesday, June 20, 2000 | 9:25 a.m.

On May 22, 1995, Donald Cameron, who had just robbed two stores, shot and killed Sparks Police Officer Larry Johnson. The fact that Cameron, who subsequently was killed by police officers in a shootout, was ever paroled set off a public outrage. Northern Nevada law enforcement agencies believed that Cameron, a career criminal, should not have been released because he was dangerous.

In response to this tragedy, state lawmakers made sweeping changes to Nevada's parole system. The lawmakers eliminated parole in many instances for violent criminals; they also required a mandatory prison time of at least 40 percent of the crime's maximum sentence to be served before parole was even considered. For the Parole Board's part, it revised much of the guidelines it used to determine whether parole should be granted. For instance, new rules ranked crimes by their severity, which included not only taking into consideration previous offenses, but also accounting for crimes committed at the same time as the one for which they were up for parole.

Five years later, as the Sun's Kim Smith reported Sunday in her story "Society's gatekeepers," there is near unanimity that the parole system in Nevada is once again working as it should, striving to ensure that dangerous criminals aren't getting out. While there definitely was a need to toughen requirements, parole itself wasn't abolished. Certainly there are many criminals who never should set foot outside a prison, but parole does provide hope for those inmates who can be rehabilitated and re-enter society.

The response by Nevada's lawmakers was strong, yet measured. And Parole Board Chairman Donald Denison, who is retiring next month, deserves credit, along with other board members, for fixing a system in need of an overhaul and sending an unmistakable signal that they won't release dangerous individuals back into society. The key for the Parole Board is to maintain the diligence in the future that it currently employs, not forgetting the victims and their families -- many whose lives either were ended or destroyed -- when judging the fate of these prisoners.