Gomez files bill to reshape Mass. parole board, require detailed parole data

State Sen. Adam Gomez filed Senate Bill No. 1128 on Jan. 17, 2025, proposing multiple changes to Massachusetts parole law to implement recommendations of a commission on structural racism in the parole process. The bill would alter parole-board membership rules, limit the use of parole conditions to case-specific rehabilitative or public-safety goals, require detailed records of decision, set hearing and decision deadlines, and mandate annual publication of disaggregated parole data.

The measure would amend chapter 27, section 4, to specify that the parole board consist of nine members appointed by the governor with the advice and consent of the council, serving five-year terms. It would require that at least three board members have at least five years’ experience in psychiatry, psychology, social work or treatment of substance-use disorders, and that one of those three be a licensed mental-health professional as defined in chapter 123. The bill also requires that at least one of the nine members be someone who has been incarcerated and successfully completed the parole process; that person must have completed parole at least three years earlier and have a professional or volunteer background in psychology, mental health or substance use, transitional housing, re-entry after incarceration, public safety or law.

Under the bill’s amendment to chapter 27, section 5, “no condition of parole shall be ordered unless that condition specifically addresses the particular characteristics of the person and the crime for which they are being paroled.” The parole board must consider whether any condition would have a rehabilitative effect or serve a legitimate public-safety goal “based on current criminal recidivism and rehabilitation research with clear and convincing evidence.”

The bill adds a new section 8 to chapter 27 that requires the parole board to collect and publish in its annual statistical report a list of disaggregated metrics. Those include: counts of parole violations, revocations and their causes by race, ethnicity and gender; the number returned to prison for preliminary hearings on alleged technical violations; the number returned to prison after final revocation hearings for technical violations; disciplinary infractions after parole; the share of eligible individuals who choose to forego the parole process by race and ethnicity; timing metrics for eligibility date, hearing date, board decision and actual release (disaggregated by race, ethnicity, gender and by inmate category such as house of correction, life-sentence inmates and others); the percentage granted a parole permit but not released; the percentage taken into custody for parole violation before a revocation hearing; and the percentage whose parole permits were revoked for technical violations not associated with criminal activity.

The bill would also amend chapter 127, section 136, directing the parole board to issue a detailed record of decision for all cases, including for inmates not serving life sentences. The record must include the individual facts that led the board to approve or deny parole and, in cases of denial, clear instructions for becoming a better candidate for parole.

Finally, the bill amends chapter 127, section 133A, to require a public hearing no later than 90 days before a person’s parole eligibility date; that hearing must be before a panel of at least six board members. The board must issue its record of decision no later than 30 days before the parole eligibility date.

The bill was filed in the Senate docket (No. 2071) and listed “The Judiciary” as the committee of referral. The filing does not specify effective dates, implementation funding, or administrative steps for collecting and publishing the newly required data.