Watchdog group criticizes parole board

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. -- A prison watchdog group is criticizing the Illinois Prisoner Review Board as being too stingy in granting parole requests from the state's longest-serving inmates.

John Howard Association executive director Malcolm Young says the review board emphasizes the original crime, rather than balancing that crime against proven rehabilitation of the prisoners.

Young said a new report from the association found that since 1984, the parole rate for long-serving inmates has averaged 3.5 percent. The report focuses on inmates sentenced before 1978, because they weren't given specific prison terms. Under laws then in effect, they were sentence in ranges, for instance 25 to 40 years.

Prisoner Review Board chairman Jorge Montes says the fact the board is criticized by both victims' rights groups and the John Howard Association indicates the board is in the place it needs to be.