Laura Norder
It’s something of a tradition that, in the run-up to a state election, The West Australian drums up a phony law and order campaign. Today, they’ve decided that parole is the issue they’re going to run on.
Under the headline, “Most criminals are given parole” (p4), Sean Cowan tells us:
Only 37 adult prisoners serving a sentence of more than one year were refused parole last financial year, while 894 fellow inmates were set free, according to figures from the WA Parole Board.
But these figures are disgracefully misleading.
It’s only five paragraphs later that we learn the truth:
But 1070 prisoners had their parole release deferred for a variety of reasons, which can include unsuitable accommodation plans, bad behaviour and a range of psychological issues.
So when you look at the statistics in an honest way, you’ve got 894 prisoners granted parole, while 1107 had their parole denied or deferred. How on earth does The West conclude that “most criminals are given parole”?
The answer is in the article:
The figures are sure to fuel the debate over WA’s parole system…
That’s the only reason The West is running them. It’s not trying to report the truth, it’s running a scare campaign against the Labor Government.
PS: A cut-down version of the article is available online.
It smells when the catgories are qualified and jump around as in “more than one year” and the next figure is for “fellow inmates” released. It seems that “flatly denied” is a significant category while “not given parole because…” (but still in jail) is not in the figure of 37.
If parole is used as a carrot to get good behaviour, you would suspect that not giving parole for a reason would be more effective than just flatly refusing. The article’s a mess and you have to wonder.
Did you see the fawn F&I pantsuits for $279.95 tho’. Smart.
Look on the bright side Robert. At least in WA you are not having “an ethnic crime wave” law and order campaign like they have in Sydney.
Maybe Sattler will tie in the aboriginals later for a good old fashioned “minority moral panic”.
Perhaps they’re not having ethnic organised gangs either, hackwatch, which must be a good thing?
If you take a look at the Parole Board’s annual report you will see why the story doesnt specify things more clearly. It says 37 were denied parole and 894 released. 1070 were deferred, but those 1070 were not actual prisoner numbers. They were 1070 decisions of the Parole Board. The Board recognised that this could be one inmate applying on several occasions. It also recognised in a follow-up article in The West Australian that most of those were indeed granted parole.