Inmates have complained that the Parole Commission orders them to get programming, but the prison where they’re serving time declines to make it available in time to qualify for parole. In some cases, inmates are offered no direction on how to gain parole aside from serving more time in prison, advocates said.

According to a recording of a meeting between advocates, Nagle and parole commissioner Steve Landreman on Feb. 19, Nagle said parole and corrections officials act independently and neither is required to coordinate with the other to offer programming to parole-eligible inmates.

“Hopefully, we can work together, but let’s be real — we don’t agree on every single case,” Landreman said on the tape, recorded by one of the people in attendance and provided to the State Journal.

The Rev. Joseph Ellwanger of the Milwaukee-based Wisdom said the meetings have produced little change.

“They confirmed that the system in place almost completely precludes parole,” Ellwanger wrote in a letter last week to Walker corrections adviser Waylon Hurlburt. “It is clearly within the discretion of the Parole Commission and the Department of Corrections to release these men and women. There seems to have been a decision made not to do so.”