Dealing with the parole board is an agonizing affair. You can spend months, if not years, preparing. Taking all the re-entry approved programs the state has to offer. Obtaining support letters from family, friends and potential employers. Then, the day finally comes for you to speak to them. They immediately begin to ask you questions about the crime you were charge with and the subsequent trial. It is at this point you realize, all they want to do is retry your case in the hearing, and they fully intend on giving you more time. Nothing you have done through the years of your incarceration matters. Not the community service hours you have amassed, the educational course you have taken, the career preparedness programs, nor the self improvement programs the state gets money for providing to inmates.
This is the experience of every inmate who ventures into a parole board hearing in the state of Ohio. However, this situation is made even worse on those who (like myself) have claimed actual innocence. The parole board expects an inmate to admit guilt, accept responsibility, and show remorse. Imagine being forced to admit to something your are innocent of, or accepting responsibility for something you did not do, or to show remorse for a crime that never occurred; just to regain the very freedom that was stolen from you to begin with. Now imagine just how many people have already do so. I am clearly not one of them.
When I went into the parole board, they stated they knew I was going to claim to be innocent. They started asking me about my case, and then about tickets I received. At one point, each of the board members would ask me questions individually. One of the board members started to ask me about the evidence against me. I told her there was absolutely no evidence against me whatsoever. She replied,” there are a lot of inmates in prison who do not have any evidence against them.” I said,”don’t you think that is a problem?” Another board member began just trying to ridicule me, and could not help but to show his disdain for me because of my charges. It did not matter what I said. I was never going to get a parole from them. They even knew about my website www.unfair-justice.org. They even brought it up in the hearing. Someone (Bob Chatelle) who was a complete stranger to me a year ago, believed in my innocence so much that he created the new site (www.shanecrum.org) to help me.
At the time, I had several certificates for programs I had taken; one of which was for 4815 community service hours I had accumulated. I even told the board that I do not take programs for them, but that I take the ones that benefit me personally. I started inmate groups who’s purpose was to prepare long term offenders for release. I have taught as many as 8 programs myself. I was trying to make an impact on my environment. None of this mattered to them. The reason inmates in Ohio are paroled only 7% of the time is due to the “Truth in Sentencing Laws”. These laws require that inmates serve up 85% of their time before being considered for release, and does not bother with petty little facts like; rehabilitation, employability, or the inmates sincere willingness to be a productive member of society. Never mind the ones who continue to not only state their innocence, but can prove it to everyone except the court of law.
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