Bobbi Cobaugh wrote in Inquest that “the only way to atone for a murder was to become a better person.” While incarcerated in the New York State prison system, she earned a paralegal degree, associate and bachelor's degrees in sociology, and a master’s degree in criminal justice. She has completed—and taught—anger replacement programs. And she attends trauma counseling weekly.

Cobaugh committed to not only bettering herself but also uplifting others. She has assisted other women in prison with filing criminal and civil appeals and represented them at disciplinary hearings. She has helped women reduce their sentences, get visitation with their children, and even secure their release.

But she has not been able to secure her own. Incarcerated for more than 20 years, she has been denied release on parole three times.

Her story illustrates a broader problem with parole—not only in New York, but also nationally.

“There is no rhyme or reason to the parole board’s decisions and processes,” said Sean Kyler, associate director of operations for advocacy and partnerships at Vera. “There were people I knew for years whom I would have no problem living next door to my mom, and the parole board would deny them.”

Kyler, who was incarcerated for 24-and-a-half years, was granted parole by the New York State Board of Parole in 2019. He is an exception; parole commissioners in New York deny parole much more frequently than they grant it.

Such disparate and seemingly irrational outcomes are the norm, underscoring the arbitrary nature of parole decisions.

What is parole?

Parole is a period of supervised release from prison. Parole can be considered an alternative to incarceration—although people are eligible for parole only after they have spent a required minimum number of years in prison, as determined by their sentence.

But beyond this basic definition, there is much variation across the country. Not all states have parole, and in those that do, parole systems can differ in significant ways, from who is eligible to how decisions about who gets parole—and who doesn’t—are made.

Thirty-three states have discretionary parole for most sentences, 15 states have abolished or severely curtailed parole, and two states fall somewhere in between. Louisiana abolished parole only for people convicted on or after August 1, 2024, so many people behind bars are still eligible under preexisting laws. California abolished parole for many people in 1977, but legislation since has expanded eligibility, including for elderly people and people sentenced as minors.

In states that have parole, grant rates, or the percentage of people approved for release out of all parole hearings in a year, also vary significantly. In 2024, Wyoming led the nation, with a grant rate of 76 percent, while South Carolina had a grant rate of only 4 percent. As of July 2025, just 10 states granted parole to at least 50 percent of applicants. In some states, eight out of every 10 parole applicants can expect to be denied, and they may have to wait anywhere from one to 15 years before their next hearing.

There are well-documented issues with how parole boards arrive at their decisions to grant parole or not. Too often, parole applicants are denied for reasons that are unclear or unrelated to their preparedness to go home, and these decisions are made in mere minutes. Many parole boards are bogged down by paperwork and process. An October 2025 report by the Prison Policy Initiative (PPI) describes parole systems as “politically motivated, under-resourced, and largely dysfunctional.”

Most parole board members are appointed by the state’s governor—commissioners are political appointees, and their decisions can be shaped by political pressure and fear of backlash. If, for example, a board grants parole to someone who later commits a crime, it can be politically damaging for whoever appointed them. As a result, parole boards may err on the side of denying release to avoid controversy rather than basing decisions solely on a person’s readiness for release.

Still, despite these issues, parole is also an important element of the criminal justice system and a vital tool for decarceration. And yet, unfortunately, parole is only becoming less common. According to PPI, nearly every state with discretionary parole is granting release to fewer people each year, and many held fewer parole hearings in 2024 compared to five years ago. Meanwhile, there are more than 200,000 people in U.S. prisons whose parole eligibility date is in the past, according to the Council of State Governments.

The purpose of parole

Parole can be a tool for transformation. The prospect of parole can provide an incentive for people to participate in educational courses and job training while incarcerated, which can help them succeed when they return home.

A parole hearing should be an opportunity to assess a person’s readiness to go home, but parole commissioners often focus too heavily on the original crime, despite the fact that a judge has already done so at sentencing and has determined parole eligibility accordingly. When this happens, the parole hearing effectively becomes a form of “resentencing.” One’s original crime is never going to change, and denying parole on this basis renders the parole hearing—and the judge’s original sentencing verdict—virtually pointless.

“We should be looking at who people are today, not the worst thing they ever did in their life,” Carol Shapiro, who served as a commissioner on the New York State Board of Parole from 2017 to 2019, told New York Focus. “The idea has always been that you do the best you can while you’re incarcerated to improve yourself, to take responsibility, and to become a valued member of our communities.”

Shapiro ultimately stepped away from the board because she was frustrated with its approach.

“We really need to do better by victims,” she said, “so that they don’t think that the only justice they can ever get is to keep somebody in prison.”

There are other ways to hold people accountable for harm and deliver justice and healing for survivors. And, in fact, many people who have experienced harm at the hands of others support approaches that prioritize healing and behavior change rather than punishment.

The case for parole

Nearly 200,000 people—one in six people in prison—are serving life sentences. As of 2019, 57 percent of people in prison were serving sentences of 10 years or more. The country incarcerates far too many people for far too long, but extreme sentences are not an effective public safety solution. Research by Vera and others also shows that people “age out” of crime—older people pose the lowest risk of committing new offenses.

“Our prisons in New York state have become geriatric facilities,” Shapiro said. “What is the purpose of keeping them in prison? It’s not the safety of our communities.”

In fact, discretionary parole may actually encourage corrections departments to prepare people for reentry rather than treating release as a procedural step. Parole supervision is also far less costly than incarceration and a key way to ease prison overcrowding. States spend more than $8 billion per year—and possibly much more—incarcerating people who are past their parole eligibility year. Meanwhile, Mississippi has released 2,400 people and has saved an estimated $159 million since it expanded parole in 2021.

An imperfect yet crucial tool

When Kyler saw the envelope containing a letter from the parole board the day after his hearing, he knew immediately what it contained.

“If the envelope is thick, then you know you’ve gotten denied because that envelope will contain your appeal papers,” he said. “If the envelope is thin, you know you’re being released,” Kyler said. His envelope was thin.

Parole systems are, clearly, far from perfect. Even if someone is granted parole, they may then face burdensome rules and restrictions that set them up to fail—and can even lead to their reincarceration. But parole has potential.

“Parole has been, and could be again, a straightforward tool for rewarding people who have grown and changed and safely reducing our large, expensive prison population,” said Marta Nelson, director of sentencing reform at Vera.

There are several ways states can improve and expand their parole systems—from ensuring that each parole applicant receives a fair and timely hearing before a panel of experienced professionals to operating on the presumption of release, which “flips the script” and requires a parole board to prove that someone is not suitable for release, rather than requiring them to demonstrate that they are. For example, in New York, the Fair and Timely Parole Act, originally introduced in 2017, would do just that, barring commissioners from denying parole based on someone’s original conviction and instructing them to release someone unless they believe there is a risk that they will commit another crime. Such measures can make parole far more accessible, so that Kyler’s experience is no longer outside the norm.