Violent crime victims rally for parole reform

Survivors of violent crimes and victim advocates voiced opposition on Tuesday to a New York State bill that would give older inmates who have served at least 15 years of their sentence an interview with a parole board.

The elder parole bill would give offenders age 55 and older who have served at least 15 years of their sentence an interview with the parole board, which would then determine if they should be released to community supervision. The bill was introduced in January by State Sen. Brad Hoylman (D-Manhattan), who plans to reintroduce it in January after it failed on a first attempt.

The survivors and victim advocates who attended a news conference in Ronkonkoma to protest the proposal and call for parole reform included two victims of the South Shore rapist, the family of a 13-year-old girl murdered by her neighbor and the brother of an Ecuadorian man stabbed to death in a 2008 Patchogue hate crime.

Appearing before parole boards forces victims and their families to relive violent experiences, physical injuries and emotional trauma, said Laura Ahearn, the executive director of the Ronkonkoma-based Crime Victims Center, which provides support services to victims and their families. Ahearn used the news conference to kick off "Voices for Victims," a call for reforms to New York State’s parole system.

"I don’t understand why just because somebody is 55 years old, they suddenly turn them into a good person," said Jenna Glatzer, who was 10 years old when she was assaulted by Scott Carroll, the South Shore rapist who committed a four-year string of sexual assaults and burglaries during the 1980s. "It does not mean that the crimes they had done are somehow lessened because they are a little bit older."

Hoylman said reforms are necessary because corrections costs the state hundreds of millions of dollars, and that allowing inmates who parole boards have determined are not a threat to return to their families is the right thing to do.

Victims and advocates also called for allowing parole boards to require violent offenders denied parole for the first time to wait four or five years — not the current two years — to reapply. The want officials to inform victims of parole hearings and provide a written summary of rights to victims. They also called for victims to receive transcripts of parole hearings at no cost, and preservation of violent crime sentencing records.

Other survivors and advocates who appeared at the news conference include the family of Kelly Anne Tinyes, a Valley Stream teen killed by a neighbor in 1989, and a woman who was 16 when she was assaulted by Carroll, who died last month in prison. Also present was Joselo Lucero, whose brother Marcelo Lucero was assaulted by a pack of teens in Patchogue and stabbed to death in a 2008 hate crime.

Lucero said he understood the pain other victims felt whenever they have to petition a parole board to keep their assailants in prison.

"Every time I talk about my brother, it is a flashback for me," Lucero said. "The pain never goes away."