Notable new accounting of parole practices in Virginia

The digital magazine Bolts has this new article about parole in Virginia under the headline, “Under Glenn Youngkin, Parole in Virginia Has Nearly Vanished.”  The full piece has all sorts of detailed stories and some data about old and new parole practices in the Old Dominion state.  Here are short excerpts from a lengthy piece:

Under past Democratic administrations, Virginia already had one of the harshest parole systems in the nation, with single-digit annual approval rates.  But parole grants have declined even further since Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin began to overhaul the parole board in 2022, dipping to an approval rate of just 1.6 percent in 2023.  So far this year, Youngkin’s parole board has approved only eight of the 628 applications it considered, a grant rate of 1.3 percent, according to Mother Jones’ and Bolts’ analysis.  In March, … the board approved only 2 out of the 117 cases it considered….

Parole board decisions could soon at least become less opaque in Virginia.  Last year, Youngkin signed a bipartisan transparency bill into law that the ACLU touted as “the biggest reform of Virginia’s parole system since 1994.”  Under the new law, which takes effect in July, the board will have to publish more regular detailed reports with individualized reasons on grants and denials, and parole review hearings will be required to include interviews with candidates themselves.  The bill also gives parole applicants and their attorneys access to all of the information being considered by the board.