It's no secret that the Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles is paroling fewer and fewer inmates.

Last year, only 8 percent of applicants were granted parole, despite the board's own guidelines recommending the release of about 80 percent of applicants.

However, as parole applications resume in 2024, recent data shows that while the percentage of people granted parole has increased, it is still far from the board's guidelines and pre-2019 approval levels. .

So far, the board has granted parole to 21 of the 103 parole applicants, a rate of about 20 percent. This is 2.5 times higher than the record low rate in 2023.

This rate was buoyed by the results of the first public hearing of the year, held on January 9, in which 10 out of 29 applicants (34%) were granted parole.

In the three subsequent hearings, that percentage declined. In two of those sessions, 4 out of 25 applicants were granted parole, giving him a rate of 16%. In the other, 3 out of 26 people were granted parole, a rate of just over 11 percent.

Before 2019, more than half of applicants were granted parole, but two major events have significantly reduced parole availability. The first is the release of Jimmy Spencer, who is accused of committing multiple murders after being granted parole. The second is the appointment of Lee Gwathney as Chairman of the Board.

A 10-week investigation last year by the ACLU found that Gwathney voted to deny parole in every case in which the attorney general's office opposed granting parole. Mr. Gwasny previously worked in the AG's office. She also voted against her parole 97.6 percent of the time.