Whoops: Washington state accidentally released 3200 inmates

The governor ordered DOC to halt all releases from prison until a hand calculation is done to ensure the offender is being released on the correct date.

Approximately 3,200 inmates in Washington’s prison system have been released early from their sentences due to a “sentencing computation issue” at the Department of Corrections, according to the governor’s office.

Meanwhile, Inslee says DOC is working swiftly to locate all offenders who were released earlier than they should have been to make sure they fulfill their sentences as required by law. The computer fix is scheduled to be in place by January 7, 2016.

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.

The department’s programming fix to bring its sentencing into compliance with the ruling had an “inaccurate sequencing” that over-credited some offenders, Inslee said. The error began in 2002 after a state Supreme Court ruling the Department of Corrections apply “good time” credits in county jail to state prison sentences, Inslee said. But a computer program over-credited numerous convicts.

“I have a lot of questions about how this happened”, Inslee said, noting the public would also have questions, and saying that an external, independent investigation would find what went wrong. Five have already been returned to incarceration.

State officials said that many early-release prisoners would have to return to jail to finish their sentences.

A total of 148 inmates have been released early since June.

“The department is now unraveling the circumstances that created this error”, Inslee said Tuesday.

The average amount of time those inmates was released early is 49 days, although in one case an inmate was released 600 days early, and others only got out a few days before they should have. “We don’t have the answer to that”, Brown said.

Governor Jay Inslee announced the news in a press conference earlier Tuesday afternoon.

State Corrections Secretary Dan Pacholke has spent more than 30 years with the DOC, and apologised for his department’s oversight, saying “the agency should be held accountable for this breach”. & stated he has ordered immediate steps to correct the longstanding pc glitch.