To: Angela McCown, Direct, Victim Services Division, The Texas State House, The Texas State Senate, and Governor Greg Abbott
Texas Dept of Criminal Justice: INJUSTICE
Our petition urges the Texas Department of Criminal Justice to change the way that paroles for violent criminals in the state of Texas are handled. As it currently stands, families of violent crime victims are forced to go through a parole review every 1-3 years, which causes anxiety and fear.
In using short setoffs as an incentive for good behavior, the State is completely dismissing the needs or concerns of the family. Reward prisoners with short-term rewards such as movies or visitation, not setoffs that terrorize the victim's family!
Not only are families victimized by the crime, but they are continually victimized year after year by a system that values the rights of a criminal over the rights of a family who's lost a loved one through violent crime.
Setoffs for violent criminals, and especially those who have been charged and found guilty of murder, should be a minimum of five years. Period.
Why is this important?
We lost our high-school friend Hart almost 30 years ago to a violent, non-remorseful criminal with a long history of crime. Hart had a life full of promise. He had just graduated high school, and was attending a technical college in Texas, when he and several friends were brutally attacked by several grown men outside a nightclub. Those men had criminal records a mile long. John Wilkins was found guilty of the murder, and sentenced to LIFE in a Texas prison.
But for the past 20 years or so, Hart's family has endured parole reviews every 1-1/2 to 3 years. The Texas DOCJ can choose to give prisoners a "5-year setoff," which means that only every five years is the prisoner up for parole. Instead, they choose to use shorter setoffs as incentive with prisoners to encourage them to behave. This practice creates stress and anxiety in the families...they already lost a loved one, but to be continually tortured with parole reviews every couple of years is inhumane.
The State of Texas needs to take the needs of victim's families into consideration, and extend setoffs to a reasonable amount of time as DEFINED BY THE FAMILIES. Not the prisoner.