Nonetheless, present law provides that a representative of the Parole Board will go through the pretense of a parole interview two or three months prior to the prisoner's scheduled minimum date. It is all a cruel farce intended to frustrate and crush the prisoner with false hopes. Conservative politicians are fond of such torments.
If a prisoner has not been scheduled to be interviewed by a Parole Board representative by 60 days before her/his scheduled minimum date, he/she must make a formal application and/or contact the parole office within her/his prison.
After the prisoner has been turned down for parole she/he is entitled to apply for review each year thereafter.
Ordinarily, the prisoner will be teased with an original parole interview. He/she will, of course, be denied parole based on any absurd thing that the interviewer dreams up. Don't worry about the "reason" for the denial. That's meaningless.
The prisoner will generally be given a "hit." That is, he'll be told that, in it's generous munificence, the Parole Board will "review" his case in some fixed period of time. The "hit" may be as little as 3 months. I know of cases where the hit has been as long as
12 years.
For "short" hits, a year or less, the prisoner has the option of pleading with her/his prison "counselor" to be reviewed early. A prison "counselor" does no counseling. His job is to inflict the maximum damage upon the prisoner and to cause the maximum grief. The prison "counselor has the option of asking the Parole Board to review a prisoner at half his/her hit. That means that the guy who gets a year hit, might, on some rare occasions, beg her/his counselor and be reviewed by the Board in as little as 6 months. But that's rare.
If the prisoner gets a longer hit, over a year, he may apply directly to the Board and he'll be reviewed after one year. A form for making such an application is linked to this page.
As a rule, the prisoner will get between 1 and 6 hits amounting to 65% to 100% of his maximum sentence. Parole in Pennsylvania is a lie, a cat and mouse game which breeds deep resentment and social hostility.
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