Our state doesn't gather enough data when it comes to parole, but we know this much, courtesy of Pew Charitable Trusts: The inmates who serve their full sentences in New Jersey typically return to prison 39 percent of the time within three years, but when inmates receive parole, the recidivism rate drops to 25 percent if you don't count technical, non-criminal violations such as a missed meeting or a failed drug test.

There is one obvious reason why the numbers shake out that way: Those who serve maximum terms aren't eligible for support programs - supervision, job training, etc. - that help them get their lives back together upon reentry.

And yet New Jersey still leads the most jailing country in the world with the highest percentage of max-outs - double the national average - even though we know that the cost of parole supervision is generally one-tenth that of incarceration.

This state is way overdue for a fix, and one has come along again. For the third time in four years, the legislature is moving the "Earn Your Way Out Act," which will correct these failures in our broken parole system - not only providing full support for max-outs, but by offering low-risk, non-violent inmates parole on first eligibility as long as they commit no serious disciplinary infractions and participate in rehab programs while incarcerated.

The bill will also incentivize people to reduce their parole term by earning compliance credits - five days per month for each month they meet the conditions of their parole.

The first two attempts at passing this measure had bipartisan support, but they were vetoed by Gov. Christie. The second veto was telling: He said he could not sign the bill because "it would erode the Parole Board authority to use its expertise in deciding to grant parole release."

Authority? Expertise? There might be some of that, but the parole board is a patronage pit, where as many as 15 political pals of the governor get $116,000 jobs, benefits, and free cars, even if they have no background in law enforcement, criminal justice or even social work.

Christie once appointed his chiropractor to the parole board. Two years ago, he appointed a cabinet member who owned two furniture stores. Last year, he nominated a freeholder from Ocean County who was already collecting two government salaries and had already drawn $500,000 on his state pension.

But that's a parole reform discussion for another time.

This reform is about restoring lives as quickly as it is practical, because we've stopped trying in New Jersey: "We've gone from 60 percent released at first eligibility down to 20 percent, and nobody can give us a reason why," said Roseanne Scotti of the Drug Policy Alliance, a primary author of the bill. "We should know why."

Accordingly, the board must put its reasons in writing if it rejects a non-violent offender parole on first eligibility - specifically, why it denies the low-risk inmate a second chance, and needlessly warehouses him after he has completed his basic sentence at a taxpayer cost of $50,000 a year.

This bill (S-761), sponsored by Sen. Sandra Cunningham, D-Hudson, is not perfect. It could be improved if it had housing and health care components, because as Scotti would tell you, those are major risk factors for relapse. But that would require an appropriation that this bill does not have.

Still, it's time to end the madness of loading our prisons with non-violent, addicted people who didn't belong there - people left to rot by a parole board at absurd expense, getting brutalized and violated and coming out more calloused, more angry, more disoriented, and still addicted. It's time to make up for decades of thick-headed policy.

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