“Some of the commissioners’ minds are made up before the guy comes into the room,” he said.

Inmates complained that it often seemed as if what they had to say did not matter.

At his hearing in January, James McArdelle sounded surprised that the commissioners appeared to be paying attention. “The most I would like to say is thank you for actually listening,” he said at the time. “I have been through parole before. A lot of people don’t listen and have a prejudgment.”

The board has long been understaffed, and it now has 13 commissioners, though as many as 19 may be appointed.

Video conferences save time and may cut costs, but the former commissioners interviewed by The Times said they believed the inmates were being shortchanged.

“There are things you may not catch if it’s done by video,” said Henry Lemons, who was a commissioner from 2009 to 2012. “A person could have turned his whole life around and walks in holding a Bible. At the interview, I’m just seeing his shoulder, neck and face on the video screen.”

Former commissioners said it was common knowledge on the board that corrections officers sometimes trumped up disciplinary “tickets,” intentionally undermining an inmate’s chances of parole.

“The commissioners in some instances are savvy enough to know that somebody who hasn’t had a ticket in years that all of a sudden has a ticket right before a hearing, there might be something going on there,” said Milton Johnson, a former board member who was a Secret Service agent and served for a year ending in 2014.