3200 inmates released too early in Washington

The governor ordered the DOC to stop all releases of all offenders from prisons until their sentences are hand calculated.

Gov. Jay Inslee’s general counsel, Nicholas Brown, says the shortest early release time for offenders affected by a Department of Corrections computer glitch was a couple of days, while the longest was about 600 days.

The state Department of Corrections expects to have a software fix in place by January 7 to correct the error that led to the early releases, Inslee’s office said.

The problem was first discovered in 2012, but a fix was reportedly delayed numerous times, leading the state’s new chief information officer to alert DOC officials to the severity of the problem.

Gov. Jay Inslee announced an independent investigation into the ongoing error that allowed certain prisoners with “enhanced” sentences, such as extra prison time for committing a felony with a firearm, to get more credit for good behavior than the law allows. The median number of days that inmates were mistakenly released early is 49 days, officials said. Depending on how much time remains in their sentences they will either return to prison or go on work release. The family did its own calculations and found he was being credited with too much “good time” credits. Five have already been put back behind bars.

“Frankly, it is maddening”, he said in a news conference Tuesday.

The computer program overlooked the exemption and misapplied the credits, Inslee’s office said in a statement.

Here’s how the early releases have been happening, according to Inslee and the DOC: Prisoners earn “good time” for serving time in local jails before they’re sent to state prison. “I have a lot of questions about how this happened”.

No state official has been fired, Brown said.

The computer glitch was spotted in 2012, not by the Department of Corrections but by the family of a crime victim. However the system had been over-crediting inmates over the past few years, thus resulting in prisoners being released earlier than they should.

“The agency should be held accountable for this breach”, he said.

Lead paragraph corrected at 11:50 a.m.to state that the inmates were released early.

Dan Pacholke, who began as Department of Corrections secretary October 17, said he learned of the problem last week.