In 1997 Ohio (the state where I'm currently residing) passed Senate Bill 2, which largely eliminated the parole board, and introduced something called "Flat Time."
In the past, the judges had a bit of leeway (based on the statue) that they could set as a minimum time, and then the parole board would release you, on parole, for a period of one or two years, based on your institutional behavior. Senate Bill 2 eliminated all of that -- if you were sentenced to two years, you were going to do every bit of two years. Judges still had the options of "Shock" parole (boot camp) and "Super Shock" parole (judicial release), but, even in the mid-to-late 2000's, they got rid of the boot camp option, and now the only decision that will let you out early is the judge pulling you out of prison and back to the county for a Judicial Release...which moves you from the state's probation/parole roster back to that counties probation roster.
As crime increases, the stressors grow on the probation department, so they are less likely to release someone via the judicial release framework, so you see 90-95% of guys do every day of their time. The Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections (and the internal joke there amongst a lot of the staff joke that they need to drop the word "Rehabilitation" from their name) has cut funding, and staffing, to most (if not all) of the good prison programs (When I volunteered at ODRC in the mid to late 90's, you could learn Novell Netware administration, some Unix administration, and some basic C programming if you worked in a library: they removed that option around 2003 and never brought it back, and replaced those inmate workers with paid staff positions. In 2009, they eliminated those staff positions and moved back to the paper method of managing library records (with card catalogues and borrower cards)). Prisoners have nothing to do, so they socialize with other prisoners, and they organize prison gangs, learn how to become better or more effective criminals, and leave prison more enamored to go back out and do more crime.
A great example of this is the Heartless Felons gang in Ohio -- they started in the youth prisons in the state around 2004/2005, and, now they are in every prison in Ohio and in most of the major cities.
Unfortunately, I really think that the solution isn't more prisons or more programs, it's reforming the way that we sentence and punish people. As a society, we need to be able to differentiate between the people who as a society, we are truly afraid of (and send them to prison for intensive rehabilitation) and people we are just mad at (and send them to therapy, community based work programs, and community based correctional facilities -- keeping them in the towns where their families live so that their children don't become the next group of Heartless Felons.
In the past, the judges had a bit of leeway (based on the statue) that they could set as a minimum time, and then the parole board would release you, on parole, for a period of one or two years, based on your institutional behavior. Senate Bill 2 eliminated all of that -- if you were sentenced to two years, you were going to do every bit of two years. Judges still had the options of "Shock" parole (boot camp) and "Super Shock" parole (judicial release), but, even in the mid-to-late 2000's, they got rid of the boot camp option, and now the only decision that will let you out early is the judge pulling you out of prison and back to the county for a Judicial Release...which moves you from the state's probation/parole roster back to that counties probation roster.
As crime increases, the stressors grow on the probation department, so they are less likely to release someone via the judicial release framework, so you see 90-95% of guys do every day of their time. The Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections (and the internal joke there amongst a lot of the staff joke that they need to drop the word "Rehabilitation" from their name) has cut funding, and staffing, to most (if not all) of the good prison programs (When I volunteered at ODRC in the mid to late 90's, you could learn Novell Netware administration, some Unix administration, and some basic C programming if you worked in a library: they removed that option around 2003 and never brought it back, and replaced those inmate workers with paid staff positions. In 2009, they eliminated those staff positions and moved back to the paper method of managing library records (with card catalogues and borrower cards)). Prisoners have nothing to do, so they socialize with other prisoners, and they organize prison gangs, learn how to become better or more effective criminals, and leave prison more enamored to go back out and do more crime.
A great example of this is the Heartless Felons gang in Ohio -- they started in the youth prisons in the state around 2004/2005, and, now they are in every prison in Ohio and in most of the major cities.
Unfortunately, I really think that the solution isn't more prisons or more programs, it's reforming the way that we sentence and punish people. As a society, we need to be able to differentiate between the people who as a society, we are truly afraid of (and send them to prison for intensive rehabilitation) and people we are just mad at (and send them to therapy, community based work programs, and community based correctional facilities -- keeping them in the towns where their families live so that their children don't become the next group of Heartless Felons.