Incarcerated residents sentenced to a life term have to use many of their self-help tools to deal with some of the harmful emotions associated with parole preparation and denials. There remain incarcerated people struggling in silence from being deemed unsuitable for parole.
CDCR’s Mental Health Services provide support to those found not suitable for parole. MHS are aware of the emotions connected to a suitability denial and it is their practice to visit with rejected residents to assess their mental stability within 24 hours of notice, according to Lifer Support Alliance.
“The day after I was denied [parole], [SQ] Mental Health Services showed up at my cell and asked me was if I okay,” said a SQ resident J. Czub. “They came so fast, I never had the time to unpack and process the way I felt.”
3-4% of ‘lifers’ that appeared before the Parole Board in 2023 were found suitable for parole, thus leaving denials at 66%, according to Lifer Support Alliance.
Most life term residents are aware that, due to Marsy’s Law, parole denials can be made for 3, 5, 7, 10 or 15 years. Although under the law, the default length is 15 years, meaning parole panels must find and articulate reasons for a shorter length, reported LSA.
“Not every commissioner handed down a 10- or 15-year denial, but the relatively few long denials were spread among about half the commissioners,” stated the report. “In fact, a couple of the commissioners with better-than-average grant rates also lead the pack in the number of long denials handed down.”
Even if a resident is found suitable for parole, some will have their suitability revisited in a process known as ‘en banc,’ through a governmental parole review panel.
Via a phone interview, Sherman Melton, a recently paroled resident recalled his experience with the en banc process.
“I was found suitable, [and] 117 days later my suitability was revoked… After all I put into my rehabilitation, honestly bro, I didn’t want to see another sunrise as a prisoner,” said Melton. “I had everything set up, …a job, a car, somewhere to rest my neck.”
He added that he credited the resident in the next cell over with helping him get back to a healthier mindset.
“I truly feel like if it weren’t for my neighbor talking to me all night, I would not be alive today. In the end, it all cleared up and now I’m home, thriving. But in that moment, my mental state was in shambles. I’m blessed to have survived en banc,” said Melton.
He revealed that after suffering a state of depression, he said he had to use every tool in his toolbox to rebuild. He added, he now sees it as the first opportunity he had to deploy the skills he learned in all of his self-help groups.
“Them tools is the reason they found me suitable in the first place,” Melton said.
