Computer Glitch Allows 3000 Inmates Early Release In Washington State

More than 3,000 inmates in Washington state prisons were released early because of software bug.

While most prisoners’ early releases amount to less than 100 days, there are reports one person who is now incarcerated had a release date set that would have seen him go free more than 600 days earlier than his sentence required. The county jail good behavior ruling, which applied to only some of the overall prison population, was not previously included in sentence reductions.

January 7, 2016: Insee said a broader software fix is expected in place by this date.

“These were serious errors with serious implications”, Inslee said in a statement.

The problem was discovered in 2012 and a fix was supposed to made but was delayed on numerous occasions.

What’s worse, the state Department of Corrections has actually been aware of the problem since 2012 but never got around to fixing it. Inslee said he has tapped two retired federal prosecutors to lead an investigation into what happened.

Officials said they do not yet know if any of the inmates released early went on to commit other crimes during the time they should have been in prison.

“Frankly, it is maddening”, said Inslee, who was first informed of the problem late last week.

The DOC estimates that the median number of days prisoners were released early is 49. The glitch affected 3% of all releases since the program was introduced in 2002, granting early releases to an estimated 3,200 prisoners.

A halt has now been placed on any releases until a “hand calculation is done” to make sure offenders are released on the correct date.

The glitch stems from a 2002 state Supreme Court ruling requiring prisons to apply good-behavior credits to sentences, ABC reported.

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”.

However, state officials expect to identify more offenders who may need to return to state custody as they continue to investigate the scope of the programming error, Brown said.

“We will see what we can find out about this and whether any of these individuals have committed crimes and what crimes they committed when they should have been in prison”, he said.