Written by Erle Stanley Gardner in 1949, the following dedication predates some of the more horrendous outcomes of failed parole, but in many ways the underlying beliefs and his enthusiastic support of the parole system still ring true, even today. While I don't entirely believe in everything he's written this is, in my opinion at least, an example of the great lawyer at his very best. I wish I could have had an opportunity to hear him read this with all the passion and personality of which he was capable.

Foreword and dedication

All of my life I have fought for the underdog and tried to improve the administration of justice.

I am assuming that the readers of this book are interested in crime and in justice.

I am hoping that this foreword can call attention to one of the great injustices of our day.

When a criminal's sentence has expired he walks down the front steps of the penitentiary a free man. Theoretically he has paid his debt to society and is on his way to sin no more. Actually in far too many cases an embittred, deadly enemy of society is walking out without any restraining influence whatever, ready to start a new series of depredations.

Parole boards recognize this fact.

When a man is paroled before his sentence expires soceity has some control over him. He must report to his parole officer. He is placed in some position of gainful employment on his release, and she is supposed to remain on that job and report periodically. If he doesn't do that, he has violated his parole and can be returned ro prison.

It is, thereofore, patently obvious that even in the most depserate cases it is far better to place any prison inmate who shows any signs of rehabilitation on parole than to hold him to the last minute of his sentence and then let him vanish into our crowded civilization, subject to no restraining influence, to engage in activities over which the authorities can have no control, and about which they have no knowledge.

Therefore, parole boards, who understand these facts, try to use the power of parole which is vested in them to protect society as much as possible and at the same time give the prison inmate at least an opportunity to engage in legitimate, gainful employment when he is released.

When the parolee makes good the public never hears about the case. The public doesn't know that John Doe, who is giving them such courteous, efficient service in the filling station, is a man who made a mistake, paid his debt to sc ieity, and is now on his way up once more.

But when a parolee does commit another crime the public certainly does hear about it. Then there is a hue and cry, a clamor. The parole board is put on the grid and taken to pieces.

Undoubtedly there are many men paroled who shouldn't be paroled. For every such failure, however, there are a dozen successes.

The main point is, the public doesn't realize that virtually all of these men who have been paroled and again violate the law would have been discharged anyway within a relatively brief period.

In the face of this widespread public misunderstanding, in the face of this adverse, unfair smearing in the press, parole boards continue to exercise their best discretion, to study the cases carefully and do their duty as they see it.

Many times these parole boards have but little discretion because the prisons are filled to overflowing. With taxpayers indiffeerent to the problem, refusing to epand prison facilities, with law enforcement officers sending a constantly increasing stream o fnew inmates to prison, it is simply a mathematical necessity to let some men out in order to make way for the new men who are comin in. In some instances parole boards make costly mistakes. Human nature being what it is, human judgement being as fallible as human judgement must always be, the only wonder is that they don't make more.

By and large our parole boards are doing a good job.

So by this foreword I wish to pay tribute to a group of men who are courageously continuing to do their duty as they see it. I wish to dedicate this book to the greatest underdog of all in the field of public relations:

The Parole Board