[Parole] Agency Is Still Seeking A Man Who's Still Dead

[ulmont]

Because I love reading the Berkut-Strix threads:

Hawkins was a felon, convicted of second-degree murder and assault, and a heroin addict who spent most of his adult life in and out of prison and on and off parole. The system lost track of him one day in July 2007, after he had been out on parole for about two years and failed a drug test at his rehab center. Although parole officers spent countless hours making more than 340 attempts to find him -- phone calls to relatives and friends, certified letters, arrest record checks, visits to his last place of employment (Goodwill) and his last known address (the Samaritan Inn), sometimes with police officers in tow -- they never found him.

Hawkins died one year later, in July 2008, at 54, of metastatic lung cancer. His family has the death certificate and certificate of cremation to prove it.

The system still hasn't found him.

Hawkins should have been easy to track when he was alive: He was receiving Social Security disability checks and Medicaid coverage for his cancer treatment and his last months of hospice care.

The case is still active, Len Sipes said yesterday. Sipes is the spokesman for the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency, or CSOSA, the federal agency that took over the D.C. parole office nine years ago when the federal government assumed responsibility for the city's prison system. According to its records, a warrant for Hawkins's arrest, issued in April 2008, is still outstanding. He is to be supervised on parole until April 27, 2016.

Last month, Hawkins's parole officer called one of his sisters to ask whether she had seen him lately.


"They said they were trying to get in touch with him because he'd been violating parole and they needed a number for him," said Maria Watson, Hawkins's younger sister. "I said, 'Well, you can call 1-800-G-O-D.' "

As Watson recalled, the parole officer hung up, only to call back five minutes later. "He wanted to know if I could send him the death certificate, because it would be easier and quicker than if he had to go get it himself," she said.

Hawkins, prison reform advocates say, had reason to be afraid. They say CSOSA routinely sends more offenders to jail for parole violations -- 2,000 last year -- than for new crimes -- 1,500.

"It's crazy," said Phil Farnesi of the D.C. Prisoners Project. "Typically, in D.C., one in three people get sent back to prison within one year, many for technical parole violations. CSOSA is incredibly zealous."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/14/AR2009061402713.html

[Darth Wagtaros]

Is the solution to mollycoddle criminals? No!  Just because they're dead doesn't mean they're off the hook.  And 'technical parole violations'? Come the fuck on.  That is hippi speak for "He's a criminal for life and will never be reformed!"  Freakin hippies.

[garbon]

I always hate when it is like a 70 year old man and they sentence him to 110 years.  Makes you think that he's going to skip out on doing all of his time. Good to know that isn't the case.

[Jaron]

HA Silly negro..

1-800-God isn't a real phone number!