MONTGOMERY – The Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles this week released revised parole guidelines. Following an extensive review and input period that ended on July 4, 2025, the Board voted on Thursday to adopt amended parole guidelines.
LINK TO REVISED GUIDELINES: https://paroles.alabama.gov/resources/administrative-rules/.
The parole guidelines are a tool that provides a baseline score used by the Board to evaluate an offender’s fitness for parole. Guidelines are not mandatory and do not provide a definitive picture of an offender’s overall parole readiness.
However, they complement other tools used by the Board, including the inmate file, which contains information on static and dynamic risk factors, individual factors and stakeholder input. The Board also considers an offender’s social and criminal history along with testimony provided at the parole hearing as it applies professional judgement to exercise its discretion to determine parole readiness.
The Board’s adoption of the amended parole guidelines is the first revision to the original version and follows the review required by Alabama law that mandates review of the guidelines every three years. However, Alabama law does not necessitate that the reviews result in revisions. The Board last considered revising the guidelines in February 2024 but voted to make no changes at that time.
In the revised guidelines, the Board made a small increase to the weight of the severity of an offender’s crime to better capture offenses that are classified as sexual and/or violent crimes. More emphasis was placed on multiple violent disciplinaries while in Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC) custody. Credit is given to offenders who complete higher education, obtain a GED or finish a trade school program while in ADOC custody. For each applicant’s final scoring on the Board’s guidelines, a neutral category was added to account for cases that are evenly balanced. A neutral baseline score calls for the Board’s decision to be guided by other factors in its comprehensive review of the inmate’s file and information provided at the time of the hearing.
As part of its updated guidelines, the Board will begin a process to allow prerecorded video submissions from parole applicants during hearings – another tool the Board may use in its considerations. The video complements an inmate’s Institutional Parole Officer’s (IPO) Report, which is compiled by an IPO prior to a parole hearing. That file consists of information obtained during offender interviews and other relevant data gathered from information from the ADOC that can impact parole fitness. The Board then weighs this file with stakeholder input, the guideline baseline score and any testimony during the hearing.
Board guidelines evolve over the years. During the most recent guideline evaluation process, the Bureau of Pardons and Paroles established a review committee to support the Board in analyzing parole data and its relationship to the revised guidelines. The committee will meet every three months to assess the guidelines and will provide insights to the Board during its next review period.