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| Michael Crowley |
Because I had some involvement with the Home Office and the British probation system in the past, I was able to make a reasonable effort to provide the information that Alice was looking for.
A few days later, she contacted me again and said that in talking with me, she realized that neither she nor any of her fellow mystery writers had even spoken with anyone who had been convicted of murder but guessed that I likely had. In reply, I said that I had indeed interviewed hundreds of individuals, both men and women, convicted of murder and serving life sentences. In turn, that led me to participate in two webinars with crime writers about my experiences over the years.
I still recall the first time I did a parole hearing that involved a lifer. This man had been released on parole but had been suspended for violating one of the conditions of his release, which meant we were seeing him at a post-suspension review. We could either revoke his release or cancel the suspension and have him return to the community. Because I was very new as a board member, the other, more experienced member, conducted the bulk of the hearing and I listened carefully.
My initial thought was that we would, of course, revoke his release. After all, he had killed someone; we had released him, and he failed to follow the rules. Of course, we had to revoke him. But we didn’t. And I learned that I had to assess this person’s risk to the community at the present time rather than seeing him only as a lifer who had screwed up.
I know that every member of the Parole Board of Canada takes their responsibilities seriously and is fully aware of the terrible harm some offenders have caused. Board members read extensive police reports, judges’ instructions to juries and anything the judge states when imposing the sentence. Members also read all victim impact statements that are part of an offender’s file and all psychological or psychiatric assessments that have been conducted. Without any doubt, a board member is acutely aware of what an offender has done — and, therefore, what they might be capable of in the future.
And that knowledge can weigh heavily on a member as they consider a case.
I’m not entirely certain what (or who) I expected to find when I started preparing for hearings involving lifers. It was difficult to fathom how an individual could choose to take the life of another person and carry out that decision, apparently without concern as to the consequences. I expected to see people who could be described as evil, heartless or remorseless.
While I can say with certainty that such people exist and will likely never be released, those individuals form a significant minority of all the lifers that I interviewed over my career.
Instead, what I often saw were individuals who did not have normal or complete childhoods or early lives; individuals who had difficulties processing strong emotions or felt anger, jealousy, or rage and had no way of dealing with those emotions. Some acted out of fear, believing the victim intended harm to them. Quite often drugs and/or alcohol played a role in disinhibiting their normal coping skills, which raised their emotions even further. And finally, a weapon was nearby and usable. That weapon could have been a gun but also could have been a knife, a rope, a rock or just a pair of hands.
In these circumstances, there is little or no thought regarding consequences, even though, objectively, they would have known that they would be facing a life sentence.
It is my experience that for many offenders and types of offending, there is also little thought about the consequences of their actions. In general, it seems, they doubt that they will be caught or, if arrested, that they will be convicted. And it is probably true that many crimes occur regularly, such as drug dealing, that don’t lead to arrests. We read that car thefts occur on an almost industrial scale, and it seems that there are very few arrests made. Houses are broken into daily and unless there are witnesses, it seems that very few arrests or convictions are the result.
I could see why someone might think that they could commit crimes without facing significant consequences.
But I don’t think that was true of people who commit murder.
My sense was that rather than thinking they could “get away with it,” a significant percentage of lifers were so fuelled by rage, anger, jealousy or fear that they simply didn’t care whether they were caught or not. They clearly did not think about the consequences of their actions — even though they likely understood that if caught, they could spend the rest of their lives in prison.
The vast majority of the individuals I interviewed who were serving life sentences could not be categorized as evil — although they committed an evil act.
I think what surprised me the most when I started doing parole hearings with lifers was how normal they seemed or how similar they seemed in comparison to the other offenders that we normally saw.
Assessing the risk that any offender poses to the community if released is the paramount task of any parole board, and the prediction of future behaviour is a difficult task at the best of times. However, the Parole Board of Canada has incorporated a structured decision-making model into its training over a number of years that allows members to focus on those factors that are most useful in predicting behaviour.
In my experience, individuals who plan murders are quite rare, and that includes serial murderers. In my opinion, the act of making such plans increases the risk that they pose and does indicate a lack of remorse, perhaps psychopathy.
For the majority of cases, the task of a board member is to fully understand the circumstances that led to the crime; the thought process that was taking place and environmental factors that were in place. And then to understand what changes had occurred during the individual’s incarceration so that it is possible to know how that individual would act or react if similar circumstances were to occur again.
It is a difficult task, and I always reminded myself of the advice that a psychologist gave me years ago when I was still learning how to assess risk. He said that in these cases, one should never ignore the victim … to keep the victim in the room at all times. And I tried to do that.
Michael Crowley has a BA from Syracuse University. He spent more than 40 years in various positions within the criminal justice system in Canada. Before retiring, Crowley had been a member of the Parole Board of Canada for 21 years. Contact him via CrowleyMichael167@gmail.com.
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